VICTORIA, Vicente - b. 1650 Denia, d. 1709 Roma

Vicente Victoria (Vittoria in Italy), Spanish painter and printmaker. Born to a Spanish mother and an Italian father, he studied grammar, theology and philosophy in Valencia, and also learnt the rudiments of painting. After 1679 he went to Rome, where he was a pupil of Carlo Maratti and came to get some fame and prestige among painters and cultivated people.

He returned to Valencia in 1688, and took up a post as Cannon in the Church of San Felipe in Xativa and spent his time writing extensively on historical and theological topics, and painting frescos in the dome of a chapel in the Cathedral in Xativa and in other monasteries and churches in the region. Some of his important works are lost.

Victoria returned to Rome in 1698 and gained the title of court painter to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo III. He became an passionate collector of high quality Italian prints and drawings as well as tablets, medals and coins and was appointed antiquarian to the Pope.

In his later Roman years, he was part of the Academy of the Arcades, published scholar works. He also wrote an important work on the history of painting that remained unpublished.

Trompe l'Oeil of a Gun Rack

This trompe l’oeil painting shows a gun rack with a flag, a sword, two pikes, two muskets, a watch, a drum, a trumpet and other objects, all hanging against a white wall.

Victoria’s friend Antonio Palomino, in his famous discourse on Spanish Painters in the 17th and early 18th centuries, highlights Victoria’s skill at the art of trompe l’oeil writing “I saw in his studio some trompe l’oeils that I mistook for reality until he himself gave me reason to doubt it, such as a simulated board done on canvas from which hung some papers, drawings, and other trifles, which I must sincerely confess did fool me.”