Victoria Martin de Campo

Victoria Martín Barhié, also known as Victoria Martín de Campo by her second marriage (Cádiz, 1794-1869), was a Spanish neoclassical painter. She is an academic of merit from the National of Santa Cristina, supernumerary from the provincial of Fine Arts. A disciple of the painter Manuel Montano, her works are characterized by a special sense of drawing, correct but not subdued, exquisite modeling and a fair sense of color. The Museum of Cádiz preserves three of his works: The Adoration of the Shepherds, Self-Portrait and Psyche and Cupid.

Life and work

He was born in 1794 into a bourgeois family in Cádiz. His father, Sebastián Martín, worked as a consul and at the same time as a merchant. Her mother, Claudia Barhié, of French origin, died shortly after her birth and was left in the care of her father's new wife, who will be in charge of guardianship of her and her siblings.

She contracted her first marriage with Álvaro Jiménez Basurto, a wealthy merchant in Cádiz, holder of several positions in the Cádiz administration. He was in charge of managing the assets of his wife and his brothers, but upon his death he left no significant assets or children. After being widowed, she contracted a new marriage in 1835 with Antonio María de Campo, a customs accounting officer, who left nothing of value when she died. Barhié's heir was her nephew Francisco Berriozabal Martín.

Training and artistic career

It is not known exactly what training Victoria Martín received. It is believed that she never traveled to Paris or Rome – the fundamental centers of Neoclassicism – but it is known that she had Manuel Montano as a teacher, from whom she received an education based mainly on literature and art. She participated in various competitions, being awarded in several of them. Her greatest professional success was obtaining a position as an academic of merit at the Academy of Fine Arts of Cádiz, under the orders of Manuel Montano, at the proposal of Joaquín Manuel Fernández Cruzado. She was also a member of merit at the Liceo de Málaga.

She was a painter faithful to the neoclassical style, although with a personal touch and a certain romantic influence that allowed her to be placed in pre-romanticism. She cultivated religious and mythological painting in addition to portraiture.

Works

Religious-themed works by Victoria Martín are found in the Cathedral of Cádiz –Ecce Homo, once attributed to Ribera, the Dolorosa and San Lorenzo Mártir , in which neoclassical training is mixed with the personal touch and influence of Murillo–, the municipal museum of Cádiz -the Magdalena and San Fernando- and the The Adoration of the Shepherds from the Cádiz museum, a small work in which figures from the canvas of the same subject painted by Rubens for the church of San Juan de Mechelen have been used.

Mythological painting is represented in Psyche and Cupid, an oil painting from the Cádiz museum, which represents the moment in which Psyche stealthily approaches the bed where naked Cupid sleeps peacefully with the aim of recognize her lover. The painter's Self-portrait belongs to the same museum, dated around 1840, a work that has been interpreted as a mix between her painting skills and her way of being, using color to highlight some of its physical qualities, such as its elegance, its beauty or its finesse. There is also a portrait of an unknown Caballero , with the characteristic features of a character from the Cádiz bourgeoisie, who may be her nephew according to Antonio de la Banda y Vargas.

Finally, there are works whose whereabouts are unknown or misattributed such as: La Casta Susana, David playing the harp before Saúl, Child in a forest and a portrait of a child that was very popular among the intellectuals of the moment, but of which there are no records. There are also no records about his collection of drawings.