Fernando Brambila

Fernando Brambila (Italian: Ferdinando Brambilla) (Cassano d'Adda, February 12, 1763-Madrid, January 23, 1834) was a Italian painter based in Spain, who worked for the Spanish Crown.

Biography

Born in Cassano d'Adda (Lombardy) in 1763, the son of Francisco Brambila (Carlo Francesco Brambilla) and Antonia Ferrari, he had three siblings, José, Domingo and María (Marianna). His nephew, Giuseppe Legnani, describes him as being of medium height, dark-haired, and with very lively eyes. From a very young age he has devoted himself to painting and works as a painter in Milan. He studied with Giocondo Albertolli (1742-1839) at the Milanese Scuola d’ Ornamenti and later at the Brera Academy. Brambila is highly influenced, like so many other painters of the time, by the technique of the French painter Vernet (1714-1789). His painting style is very academic and shows a magnificent mastery of perspective.

He was working on good set designs for the La Scala Theater (1788-1790) when the counts (Paolo de) Greppi and Melzi d'Eril, commissioned by the Spanish government, proposed that he join the expedition directed by Alejandro Malaspina (1789-1794) as a painter (end of March 1791). Brambila was hired along with Juan Ravenet (Giovanni Ravenet), a Parmesan painter, due to the resignation of Blas Martin. In April 1791, they set out on a journey to contact the expedition: from Milan to Genoa in the company of their colleague Ravenet, then Barcelona. From there they went to Madrid and La Coruña, where they boarded the mail frigate El Cortés for America. After passing through Havana, they arrive in Veracruz. From the port they leave for Mexico and Acapulco, where the two corvettes of the expedition are located. In their wake they leave works with views of Mexico and Acapulco. The naturalist Antonio Pineda testifies that Brambila apparently also draws Aztec antiquities, although these drawings have never been found.

The presence of both painters satisfied Malaspina because they replaced two others who resigned. Brambila paints views of the most important ports and cities visited by the corvette Atrevida. They are panoramic that provide precise and comprehensive information on the situation, defense system, monuments, etc. from Humatac Bay, on Guam or Guajan, Mariana Islands; from Palapa, Sorsogon, Manila, Zamboangan, in the Philippines; Macau, in China; Sydney, Parramatta, in Australia; Vavao, in the Fiji Islands; Lima, in the Viceroyalty of Peru; and Buenos Aires and Montevideo, in the Viceroyalty of La Plata. This material is basic for any student interested in learning about the life and state of those cities at the end of the Enlightenment.

Brambila returns together with Ravenet (1795), and remains in Spain working at his trade for which he receives a salary of 27,000 reales per year, according to agreed with Malaspina. He collaborated in the execution of engravings based on his paintings, in preparation for the publication of the memory of the Malaspina Expedition . In attention to his merits and services, on April 14, 1799, Fernando Brambila was distinguished by Carlos IV with the title of "painter, architect and ornamentist of his Royal Chamber", with the same salary that he had enjoyed until then and with the commission to continue the work of the expedition. In 1800 he married Josefa ( Giuseppina ) Tami, and his only daughter, Antonia Brambila (1802 / 8-1869), was born from the marriage, since Brambila was widowed young.

On the occasion of the exaltation of Cardinal Luis María de Borbón to prelate of the Archbishopric of Toledo, Brambila was entrusted with a large portal in a triumphal arch to be placed in the Puerta del Perdón of the Cathedral. Brambila requests the collaboration of Gregorio Borghini and at his conclusion, on February 7, 1801, they value his work at ninety thousand reales. The price seemed excessive to the canon and senior worker of the cathedral, Francisco Pérez Sedano, who asked for an opinion from other artists who valued the work at a low price. Finally, the king's chamber painter, then Francisco de Goya, was called, who valued the work at forty-five thousand reais, just half of what was requested. Brambila and Borghini receive this amount for their work but angrily express their disagreement.

In May 1806, the commission for which Brambila and Ravenet were hired was officially liquidated, the date on which the painters delivered all their fair drawings of the Malaspina expedition to José Espinosa y Tello, director of the Hydrographic Deposit.

The Napoleonic troops installed in Spain since the end of 1807, and since May 1808 the opposition of the Spanish people to the French invasion has been unleashed, Zaragoza suffered a First Siege by the French, which failed but caused great damage to the city. In October 1808 Brambila went to Zaragoza together with Juan Gálvez, invited by General Palafox. In Zaragoza he takes notes with which he elaborates the graphic testimony of what happened, gathered in the collection of engravings of the Ruin of Zaragoza (32 plates). The painters return to Madrid and, before the imminent fall of the city, they go to Cádiz where they will publish the series (1812-1813).

After the war, Brambila returned to his position as chamber painter, now for Fernando VII. In 1814 he was appointed director of Perspective and Adornment (1814) at the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts. In 1815 he was elected academician of merit.In 1817, the Academy published his Treatise on Elementary Principles of Perspective . He combines his activity in the academy with royal services. In 1821 he was commissioned to paint a series of views of the Royal Sites (El Escorial, Aranjuez, Buen Retiro, Moncloa, La Isabela, Solán de Cabras, etc.) on which he worked until the end of his days, all of them lithographed in 1832. He dictated his will in Madrid on August 18, 1832 and died in 1834. He was buried in the San Martín cemetery, located in the area where he lived.

Works

• Series of drawings and engravings Expedition Malaspina.
• Series of engravings Ruins of Zaragoza.
• Table series Views of the Real Sites and Madrid.

Gallery of engravings and paintings by Brambila

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  Linking cattle in Las Pampas

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  Pira and graves of the family of the current Ankau in the port of Mulgrave. Madrid, Naval Museum

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  Manila Cathedral, Philippines

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  View of the Puerta de San Vicente, Madrid

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  View of the Royal Site of La Isabela and Baños de Sacedón, Guadalajara

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  View of the Royal Palace from the Cuesta de la Vega

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  Cascada de La Granja

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  Watercourse in La Victoria (Lima, Peru)