19th-20th Century Spanish

Born on 24 July 1841 in Rome, where his father—the famous painter Federico de Madrazo (1815-1894)—was living at the time thanks to a scholarship. One year later the whole family would return to Madrid, where Raimundo began his art training under the supervision of his father, who was a teacher at the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and also of his grandfather, José de Madrazo (1781-1859). Those early learnings made him highly proficient in drawing from a very early age.

In 1854 the young Madrazo enrolled officially at the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where he met some of the artists who would later influence his career; these included Martín Rico (1833-1908) and the French painter Léon Bonnat (1833-1922).

In 1862 he moved to Paris, where he attended the studio of Léon Cogniet (1794-1880) and became a pupil of Adrien Dauzats (1804-1868). In Paris he was a student at the École des Beaux-Arts, which he quit shortly afterwards to enrol at the more prestigious École Imperiale de Dessin. He visited the Louvre regularly to copy paintings by old masters and he frequented the studio of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867).

Madrazo quickly became a member of Parisian art circles. His father’s contacts and his own skills in portrait painting led to important commissions and he signed several contracts with the art dealer Adolphe Goupil. In 1869 he attended the studio of Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904). The close relationship he maintained with his brother-in-law Mariano Fortuny (1838-1874) considerably increased his celebrity and his works were acquired by the city’s most exclusive collectors.

In the 1870s Madrazo reaped great international success: he exhibited in the most important galleries in Paris and London, was a regular participant at the and his work was in great demand from the main European and American collectors. In 1874 he married his cousin Eugenia de Ochoa y de Madrazo. One year later their only child was born, Federico Carlos de Madrazo y Ochoa (1875-1935), better-known as Cocó, who would also become a painter apart from being a musician.

In 1889 the artist was decorated with the Gold Medal at the Paris Exposition Universelle and he was appointed Commandeur of the , proof of the high prestige he enjoyed in France. This recognition however did not extend to Spain, where some of the commissions he received in that period never materialized.

In 1905 Raimundo de Madrazo was appointed honorary member of the Hispanic Society of America of New York. He settled definitively in Versailles, where he died on 15 September 1920. That same year the Royal Academy of London—of which he was a member—organised an exhibition in his tribute.