Baltasar de Echave Facts for Kids

Portrait of Baltasar De Echave in his "Discursos de la antigüedad de la lengua cántabra bascongada" (Speeches on the antiquity of the Basque Cantabrian language), Mexico, Enrico Martínez, 1607.

Baltasar de Echave Orio was a famous Basque and Spanish painter. He lived from the late 1500s to the mid-1600s. To tell him apart from his son, who was also a painter with the same name, he is often called Echave the Elder.

Life of Baltasar de Echave Orio
Artistic Works and Writings
Images for kids
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Life of Baltasar de Echave Orio

Baltasar de Echave Orio was born in a town called Zumaya in Guipuzcoa, Spain. He was one of the first Spanish artists to travel to Mexico. He arrived there around the end of the 1500s. Other artists like Sebastian Arteaga and Alonzo Vasquez came at a similar time.

In those days, it was a common tradition for young men to learn from their wives. Baltasar's wife was also a painter and taught him many things. He later passed away in Mexico. His family continued his artistic legacy. His son, Baltasar de Echave Ibía, and his grandson, Baltasar de Echave Rioja, both became painters too.

Artistic Works and Writings

Echave mostly painted religious scenes. He was very good at arranging his paintings. Some people even compare his best works to those of a famous Italian painter named Guercino.

Many of his important paintings are kept at the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City. Here are some of them:

"The Adoration of the Magi"
"Christ in the Garden"
"The Martyrdom of San Aproniano"
"The Holy Family"
"The Visitation"
"The Holy Sepulchre"
"Saint Ann and the Virgin"
"The Apparition of Christ and the Virgin to San Francisco"
"The Martyrdom of San Ponciano"
"Saint Cecilia"

You can find other paintings by him in different churches. For example, in the church of San José el Real, also known as "Profesa," you can see "St. Isabel of Portugal." He also created fifteen altar-panels for the church of Santiago Tlaltelolco.

In the main cathedral, his painting "Candelaria" is displayed. There is also a "San Sebastian" painting there, which many believe was painted by his wife. Among his smaller works, one shows San Antonio Abad with St. Paul, who was the first hermit.

Besides painting, Baltasar de Echave Orio was also a writer. One of his well-known books was about the Basque language. It was called Discursos de la antigüedad de la lengua cántabra Bascongada and was published in Mexico in 1607.