Polanco

Polanco is the name of three brothers esteemed Spanish painters of the 16th century, natives of Seville. Francisco Zurbaran was their master, and they were so proficient in art that even in their own times their works were confounded with those of their master. This mistake, says Quillet, has been quite frequent with those who beheld the paintings of San-Esteban at Seville, where Zurbaran painted St. Peter and St. Stephen, but where the Martyrdom of the patron, the Nativity, which is below, St. Hermenegilde, and St. Herman, are works of Polanco. They always worked and lived together. Their great paintings adorn the monuments of Seville. At San- Paolo we find the Apparition of the Angels to Abraham; Tobias the Younger guided by an Angel; Jacob Wrestling; Joseph's Dream; and in the church of the Guardian Angels, St. Theresa in Ecstasy (1649). The last work of Carlo Polanco, who seems to have been the most celebrated of the brothers, bears the date of 1686. — Hoefer, Nouvelles Biographies Géneralé, 40, 588.