ABSTRACT
Francisco Pacheco's significance in the history of Spanish art goes well beyond his merits as a painter; his artistic production is only of modest quality in relation to that of Roelas or Herrera, who were active in Seville at the same time. Pacheco was born in Sanlúcar de Barrameda in 1564, and his artistic apprenticeship took place first in Seville, in the workshop of a painter about whom nothing is known, and later in Flanders, where he studied with a local artist during a brief stay in Ghent. Pacheco's painting no longer follows the artistic canons of Mannerism, but in spite of all his theoretical support of the merits of naturalism in the Artede la pintura, his works are very far from putting it into practice.
