Navarete, Juan Hernandez

, a Spanish painter, was born in 1562 at Logronno, and becoming, in his third year, both deaf and dumb, is generally known under the name of " E! Mudo.' His talent for the art was not, however, affected by this misfortune; a rapid progress in the school of Fr. Vicente soon enabled him to travel to Italy, and to form himself at Venice upon the works of Titian. After his return to Madrid, he was, 1568, nominated painter to the king, and gave a proof of his great talent by a small picture representing the baptism of Christ, still preserved in the Escurial; which is indeed the repository of his most distinguished works, especially of the celebrated Presepio, in which the principal light emanates from the Infant; the S. Hippolytus in nocturnal quest after the body of S. Lorenzo, where silence, secresy, and fear, appear personified; and what is commonly considered as his masterpiece, a Holy Family, not less noticed for the characteristic singularity of the accessories ^*

than the beauties of the groupe. To these his works at Valencia, Salamanca, and Estrella are little inferior; all distinguished by a colour which acquired him the title of the Spanish Titian. He died in 1579. ¹