Ponciano Ponzano

Ponciano Ponzano was born in Zaragoza on 19 January 1813. His father was a guard at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Luis, and he grew up among works of art. Impressed by a historical relief that he had made, the Academy of San Fernando awarded him a grant to study in Rome. There, he was able to study sculpture from the Greco-Roman era under masters such as Bertel Thorvaldsen and Pietro Tenerani, and achieved some success with his own dramatic works. One of these, Ulysses recognized by Eurycles, gained such good reviews that on his return to Spain in 1838 he was named an academic of merit. ==Later career==

On his return to Spain Ponzano established a workshop in Madrid. He received many commissions, particularly for busts of members of the government and the royal family. Ponzano died on 15 September 1877 in Madrid. In his day Ponciano Ponzano was one of the most highly regarded of Aragonese sculptors. He moved in high social circles, and was considered to be of excellent moral character. However, his work has been criticized as not being authentically creative. The neoclassical tradition was essentially sterile and he lived in a period when Spanish and European sculpture was in decline, with little innovation. Due to changes of fashion, his work has now been largely forgotten, although it is still preserved in private collections and in public monuments such as San Lorenzo de El Escorial. ==Sample works==

Ponzano created a large group The Flood for Francisco de Borja Queipo de Llano, 8th Count of Toreno. It depicts a naked man climbing with his mother carried on his shoulder to save her from the flood. He won many commissions for portraits. Some of these busts were more realistic because he was able to pay more attention to nature and was less distracted by representing a symbolic character. Examples are his busts of Dr. Eusebio Lera y Aznar and of José de Madrazo y Agudo. ==Gallery==

File:Congreso de los Diputados (España) 05.jpg|Partial view of the main façade of the Congress of Deputies in Madrid. Tympanum was sculpted in Carrara marble by Ponciano Ponzano in 1864. File:Congreso de los Diputados (España) 07.jpg|Detail of one of the two bronze lions outside the Spanish Congress of Deputies building, in Madrid File:Congreso de los Diputados (España) 06.jpg|Detail of one of the two bronze lions outside the Congress of Deputies of Spain building File:Congreso de los Diputados (España) 04.jpg|Detail of the main façade of the Spanish Congress of Deputies building (Madrid), by architect Narciso Pascual y Colomer File:Mausoleo conjunto PHI (Madrid) 01.jpg|Joint mausoleum in Madrid of six Spanish Liberal Politicians: Agustin Arguelles, Jose Maria Calatrava, Juan Alvarez Mendizabal, Diego Munoz Torrero, Francisco Martinez de la Rosa and Salustiano Olózaga. The sculpture of Liberty at the top by Ponciano Ponzano File:Mariano Lagasca y Segura (RJB Madrid) 01.jpg|Mariano Lagasca y Segura (1776–1839) at the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid File:Mariano Lagasca y Segura, Real Jardín Botánico.jpg|Mariano Lagasca y Segura (1776–1839) at the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid File:Congreso de los Diputados (España) 12.jpg|One of the two bronze lions outside the Spanish Congress of Deputies building ==References==