a Spanish painter of the Baroque period, and a writer on art, author of El Museo pictórico y escala óptica, which contains a large amount of important biographical material on Spanish artists. He studied philosophy, theology and law at Córdoba, and had lessons in painting from Juan de Valdés Leal, who visited there in 1672, and afterwards from Juan de Alfaro y Gamez in 1675. He married a lady of rank, and, having been appointed alcalde of the mesta, was himself ennobled; in 1688 he was appointed painter to King Charles II. Palomino's El Museo pictórico y escala óptica first appeared in 1715–24 in a three-volume folio edition. The first two parts, on the theory and practice of the art of painting, have had little influence.
