Mélida Y Alinari Enrique (1838 - 1892) Interior Of A Church Oil On Panel

Enrique Mélida y Alinari, (1838 - 1892)
Enrique Mélida was a Spanish painter, lithographer and writer. Through his marriage to Marie Bonnat, he is the brother-in-law of the painter Léon Bonnat. Enrique Mélida is the son of the lawyer. Despite his early penchant for the fine arts, he devoted his youth to law studies, from which he graduated in 1860. He became a lawyer at the Court of Auditors, which his father headed.

However, his artistic vocation was revealed and he acquired a reputation as a portraitist and genre painter. He is one of the founders of the magazine El Arte en España. He was a student of the painter José Méndez and Ernest Meissonier. He exhibited for the first time at the Bayonne International Exhibition in 1864 with the painting depicting An Executioner and His Victim and Two Dogs' Heads, which received an honorable mention.

To the National Exhibition of Fine Arts of 1866, he sent a painting entitled Santa Clotilde, a study and a self-portrait, which were acclaimed by the public and critics. Melida then participated in all the national fine arts exhibitions.

His painting “A Baptism in the Sacristy of San Luis” was exhibited at the Paris Salon and was acquired by the French state. He then exhibited in Vienna and Madrid and met with new success.

His painting A Mass of Relief in Spain (1872) is kept in Bayonne at the Bonnat-Helleu museum2. He published articles in the magazine El Arte en España, on subjects such as the School of Madrid (es), the Proverbios of Francisco de Goya and the biography of the painter Victor Manzano. After his marriage to Marie Bonnat in 1882, sister of the French portraitist Léon Bonnat, Enrique Mélida moved to Paris in 1883.

He was a friend of Edgar Degas, who painted his portrait around 1863, and of Henri de Toulouse- Lautrec. He was a member of the international jury of the Universal Exhibition of 1889 in Paris.