was no more heard of-this being the sequel “of the abduction by Don John of Austria, son of Philip IV., of the painter’s beautiful only daughter Maria Rosa. But these assertions have not availed to displace the earlier and Well-authenticated statement that Ribera died peaceably and wealthy in Naples in 1656. His own signature on his pictures is constantly “Jusepe de Ribera, Espanol.” His daughter, so far from being disgraced by an abduction, married a Spanish nobleman who became a minister of the viceroy.
The pictorial style of Spagnoletto is extremely powerful. In his earlier style, founded (as we have seen) sometimes on Caravaggio and sometimes on the wholly diverse method of Correggio, the study of Spanish and Venetian masters can likewise be traced. Along with his massive and predominating shadows, he retained from first to last great strength of local colouring. His forms, though ordinary and partly gross, are correct; the impression of his works gloomy and startling. He delighted in subjects of horror. Salvator Rosa and Luca Giordano were his most distinguished pupils; also Giovanni Do, Enrico Fiammingo, Michelangelo Fracanzani, and Aniello Falcone, who was the first considerable painter of battle-pieces. Among Ribera’s principal works should be named “St Ianuarius Emerging from the Furnace,” in the cathedral of Naples; the “Descent from the Cross,” in the Neapolitan Certosa, generally regarded as his masterpiece; the “Adoration of the Shepherds” (a late work, 1650), now in the Louvre; the “Martyrdom of St Bartholomew,” in the museum of Madrid; the “Pieta,” in the sacristy of S. Martino, Naples. His mythologic subjects are generally unpleasant-such as the “Silenus,” in the Studji Gallery of Naples, and “Venus Lamenting over Adonis,” in the Corsini Gallery of Rome. The Louvre contains altogether twenty-five of his paintings; the National Gallery, London, two-one of them, a “Peita,” being an excellent though not exactly a leading specimen. He executed several fine male portraits; among others his own likeness, now in the collection at Alton Towers. He also produced twenty-six etchings, ably treated. For the use of his pupils, he drew a number of elementary designs, which in 1650 were etched by Francisco Fernandez and which continued much in vogue for a long while among Spanish and French painters and students.
Besides the work of Dominici already referred to (1840–46), the Diccionario Historico of Cean Bermudez is a principal authority regarding Ribera and his works; also E. de Lalaing, “Ribera” (in Histoire de quatre grands peintres), 1888. (W. M. R.)
RIBOT, ALEXANDRE FELIX JOSEPH (1842–), French
statesman, was born at St Omer on 7th February 1842. After
a. brilliant career at the university of Paris, where he was
lauréat of the faculty of law, he rapidly made his mark at the
bar. He was secretary of the conference of advocates and one
of the founders of the Société de législatian comparée. During
1875 and 1876 he was successively director of criminal affairs
and secretary-general, at the ministry of justice. In 1877 he
made his entry into political life by the conspicuous part he
played on the committee of legal resistance during the Broglie
ministry, and in the following year he was returned to the
chamber as a moderate republican member for Boulogne, in
his native department of Pas-de-Calais. His impassioned yet
reasoned eloquence gave him an influence which was increased
by his articles in the Parlement in which he opposed violent
measures against the unauthorized congregations. He devoted
himself especially to financial questions, and in 1882 was
reporter. of the budget. He became one of the most prominent
republican opponents of the Radical party, distinguishing
himself by his attacks on the short-lived Gambetta ministry.
He refused to vote the credits demanded by the Ferry cabinet
for the Tongking expedition, and shared with M. Clémenceau
in the overthrow of the ministry in 1885. At the general
election of that year he was one of the victims of the Republican
rout in the Pas-de-Calais, and did not re-enter the chamber
till 1887. After 1889 he sat for St Omer. His fear of the
Boulangist movement converted him to the policy of “Republican
Concentration,” and he entered office in 1890 as
foreign minister in the Freycinet cabinet. He had an intimate
acquaintance and sympathy with English institutions, and two
of his published works-an address, Biographie de Lord Erskine
(1866), and Etude sur l'acte du 5 avril 1873 pour l’établissement
d’une cour suprême de justice en Angleterre (1874)—deal with
English questions; he also gave a fresh and. highly important
direction to French policy by the understanding with Russia,
which was declared to the world by the visit of the French
fleet. to Cronstadt in 1891, and which subsequently ripened
into a formal treaty of alliance, He retained his post in the
Loubet ministry (February–November 1892), and on its defeat
became himself president of the council, retaining the direction
of foreign affairs. The government resigned in March 1893 on
the refusal of the chamber to accept the Senate’s amendments
to the budget. On the election of Félix Faureeas president of
the Republic in January 1895, M. Ribot again became premier
and minister of finance. On the 10th of June he was able to
make the first official announcement of a definite alliance with
Russia. On the 30th of October the government was defeated
on the question of the Chemin de fer du Sud, and resigned
office. The real reason of its fall was the mismanagement of
the Madagascar expedition, the cost of which in men" and
money exceeded all expectations, and the alarming social
conditions at home, as indicated by the strike at Carmaux.
After the fall of the Méline ministry in 1898 M. Ribot tried in
vain to form a cabinet of “conciliation.” He was elected, at
the end of 1898, president of the important commission on
education, in which he advocated the adoption of a modern
system of education. The policy of the Waldeck-Rousseau
ministry on the religious teaching congregations brokeup the
Republican party, and M. Ribot was among the seceders;
but at the general election of 1902, though he himself secured
re-election, his policy suffered a severe check. He actively
opposed the policy of the Combes ministry and denounced the
alliance with M. Jaurés, and on the 13th of January 1905 he
was one of the leaders of the opposition which brought about
the fall of the cabinet. Although he had been most' violent
in denouncing the anti-clerical policy of the Combes cabinet,
he now announced his willingness to recognize a new régime to
replace the Concordat, and gave the government his support
in the establishment of the Associations cultuerles, while he
secured some mitigation of the severities attending the separation.
He was re-elected deputy for St, Omer in 1906. In the
same year he became a member of the French Academy in
succession to the duc d'Audiffret-Pasquier; he was already a
member of the Academy of Moral and Political Science. In
justification of his policy in opposition he published in 1905
two volumes of his Discours politiques.
RIBOT, THÉODULE (1823–1891), French painter, was born
at Breteuil, in Eure, in 1823, and died at Bois Colombes, near
Paris, in September 1891. A pupil nominally of Glaize, but
more really of Ribera, of the great Flemings and of Chardin,
Théodule Ribot had yet conspicuously his own noble and
personal vision, his own intensity of, feeling and rich sobriety
of performance. Beginning to work seriously at art when
he was no longer extremely young, and dying before he was
extremely old, Ribot crowded into some thirty or thirty-five
years of active practice very varied achievements; and he
worked in at least three mediums, oil paint, pencil or crayon
draughtsmanship and the needle of the etcher. His drawings
were sometimes “complete in themselves,” and sometimes
fragmentary but powerful preparations for painted canvases.
The etchings, of which there are only about a couple of dozen,
are of the middle period of his practice; they show a diversity
of method as well as of theme; the work in the well-nigh
Velazquez-like “Prière”—a group of girl children—contrasting
strongly with that process almost of outline alone, which
he employed in the brilliant little group of prints which record
his vision of the character and humours of cooks and kitchen-boys.
In etching, the method varied with the theme—not
with the period. It is quite otherwise with the paintings.
Here the earlier work, irrespective of its subject, is the drier
