Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta (1870-1945) Spanish, Oil on Canvas Portrait of a Matador. Oil portrait depicting a Spanish matador clad in a gold-embroidered blue suit of lights (traje de luces) drape-wrapped in a ceremonial cape, with a mounted picador visible in profile directly behind him. Signed lower left. Framed.

Overall Size: 38 x 26 in.
Sight Size: 36 x 24 in.

Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta (1870–1945) was a Spanish painter born in Eibar, Guipúzcoa, who became one of the leading Spanish artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He initially studied engineering but abandoned it for painting, developing his early artistic education by copying works by Ribera, Velázquez, Goya, and El Greco at the Museo del Prado. After traveling to Rome, he settled in Paris, where he encountered Impressionism, Symbolism, and contemporary artists including Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Rusiñol, but increasingly turned toward distinctly Spanish subjects. His stays in Andalusia and especially Segovia inspired paintings of bullfighters, dancers, peasants, landscapes, and figures in regional dress, characterized by dramatic compositions, somber colors, and a strong sense of Spanish identity. Zuloaga exhibited widely in Europe and the United States, received major international honors, and became particularly renowned as a portraitist of aristocrats and prominent figures. He spent his later years between Madrid and his home and studio in Zumaya, where he died in 1945.

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