Diego Valentín Díaz

Holy Family, ca. 1650, now in the Museo Nacional de Escultura in Valladolid

Diego Valentín Díaz, a Spanish historical painter, and a familiar of the Holy Office, was a native of Valladolid. He painted many important pictures for churches and monasteries, especially for the church of San Benito, now a barrack, and the convents of St. Jerome and of St. Francis, of which the 'Jubilee of the Porciuncula ' in the latter house was one of the most esteemed. His 'Holy Family,' painted for San Benito, is now in the Museum at Valladolid; but his best work was the altar-piece representing the 'Annunciation of the Virgin,' painted for the Hospital for Orphan Girls which he founded at Valladolid. The architecture and perspective are in the finest style, and the statues introduced are admirably executed. Diaz died at Valladolid in 1660 AD. He accumulated considerable wealth, the greater part of which he left for the support of this hospital, at which site he was buried, and where are preserved the portraits of the munificent artist and of his wife — " he a grey-haired sharp old man, she a dark-eyed dame."

Flowers, ca. 1650, now at the Museo Diocesano y Catedralicio in Valladolid

References

This article incorporates text from the article "DIAZ, Diego Valentin" in Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers by Michael Bryan, edited by Robert Edmund Graves and Sir Walter Armstrong, an 1886–1889 publication now in the public domain.