COURTING CONTROVERSY
By Richard Carreño
[WC News Service]
MADRID -- I have two great painters in the family.
One was my grandfather, Toribio Carreño, an early 20th-century immigrant from Cuba, who was house painter in New York.
The other is Juan Carreño de Miranda, a 17th-century Spanish court painter.
They both worked in oils.
That's pretty much where their artistic similarities begin and end. Toribio went on to have his ephemeral masterpieces take pride of place on several residential blocks in Brooklyn. Juan's works have proven to be more timeless, taking pride of place in the Museo Nacional del Prado here.
Family legends are often dodgy, more fun to playfully indulge in than rigorously inspect, and thus it's often best not to scratch too deeply into genealogical details.
Still, it's more than just amusing to associate one's own DNA with a historical figure, especially a personage who can link a family's roots to a glamorous, regal past. True, Carreño de Miranda (1614-1685) wasn't as skilled, prominent, nor as well-connected as his contemporary Diego Valázquez (1599-1660). Valázquez painted kings. Carreño, for the most part, painted dukes and lesser royalty. (Though, as a royal painter, he still did get a few cracks at depicting Mad King Charles II in a few unflattering portraits).
