Alvarez

Alvarez, DON JOSÉ, the greatest of modern Spanish sculptors, was born in 1768, in the province of Cordova. During youth he laboured with his father, a stone-mason; and when twenty years old, began to study drawing and sculpture in the academy at Granada. He secured the patronage of the Bishop of Cordova, and in 1794 was received into the academy of San Fernando, where in 1799 he gained the first prize and a grant to enable him to study at Paris and Rome. In Rome, where he lived on terms of friendship with Canova and Thorvaldsen, he executed a famous group, now in the Royal Museum of Madrid, representing a scene in the defence of Saragossa. At Rome till 1826, he died at Madrid in 1827.