01 Work, The Art of War, Eugenio Lucas Velázquez's The Ambush, with footnotes

Eugenio Lucas Velázquez (1817–1870)

The Ambush, c.1850–1870

Oil on metal

H 35.5 x W 50.8 cm

Birmingham Museums Trust

The theme of travellers waylaid by bandits was a common one in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century painting as the Napoleonic wars brought chaos and lawlessness to many parts of Europe. Criminals, deserters and the remnants of defeated armies often turned to highway robbery as the social order collapsed. More on this painting

Eugenio Lucas Velázquez was a Spanish Romantic artist who best understood the art of Goya. 

He began training as a student of the San Fernando Academy. However, dissatisfied with the cold classicism taught at the academy, he preferred to study the great geniuses of Spanish painting first-hand and often went to the Museo del Prado to copy Velázquez and, above all, Goya, whose painting would leave a lasting mark on his style and artistic personality. 

In 1850 he painted the ceiling, no longer extant, of the opera house in Madrid and Queen Isabella II later appointed him honorary court painter and a knight of the order of Charles III.

Married since 1844, Lucas Velázquez separated from his wife in 1853 and the following year went to live with Francisca Villaamil, by whom he had four children. One of them, Eugenio Lucas Villaamil (1858–1918), followed – albeit with less talent and a considerably more eclectic personality – his father’s footsteps in both profession and style, and their works are sometimes confused with each other.

He died in Madrid on 11 September 1870. More on Eugenio Lucas Velázquez

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