Eduardo Zamacois y Zabala

Eduardo Zamacois y Zabala (ca. 1841 – 1871) was a Spanish academic painter who was born in Bilbao, Spain in 1841 or 1842. In 1859 he moved to Madrid and enrolled in the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. He studied with Federico de Madrazo and worked as a copyist in the Prado.

On the advice of Madrazo, he moved to Paris in 1860 where he could learn by copying the old masters in the Louvre. He was accepted as a student of Ernest Meissonier (1815-1891) and achieved success at the Paris Salon of 1867 with his ‘Buffon au 16e siecle’. He met the most important intellectuals and painters of his day including Leon Bonnat, Alexandre Cabanel and Alexandre Dumas fils.

Zamacois y Zabala is associated with both classicism and anti-clerical art, and his ironic scenes painted with refined painstaking brushstrokes created a ‘luminescent’ quality to his work and earned him the reputation of being one of the renowned and significant figures in European painting in the 19th century.

At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war he returned to Madrid and died suddenly in 1871 at the age of 29.