Juan de Juanes

In the middle of the 16th century the painter who set the tone for all of Valencia was Vicente Juan Masip, known as Juan de Juanes. He had learned his trade in the workshop of his father, also a painter, and the two often worked side by side before the son took the lead.

Spanish writers came to call him the Spanish Raphael, because he absorbed the balanced, idealised style of Raphael's Roman school without ever leaving Spain, most likely from prints and copies. He painted sacred subjects only. His best-known canvas is a Last Supper, now in the Prado in Madrid, its colour bright and its composition carefully ordered around the moment Christ blesses the bread.

Around 1562 he reached his height with the altarpiece of Saint Stephen for a church in Valencia, its panels now also in the Prado. He died in 1579, and his son Vicente carried on the family workshop.