COELLO, CLAUDIO. – Spanish painter and architect, b. in Madrid, baptized on 2 March 1642, d. there on 20 April 1693. A pupil in his native city of Francesco Rizi, he was nevertheless drawn toward the forms of Rubens, Van Dyck, and the Italian seventeenth-century painters. In Madrid
he left paintings in the churches of S. Placido and S. Croce; he also painted frescoes there, which, like the paintings, were destroyed in a fire at the beginning of the eighteenth century.
In the frescoes of S. Croce he had as his collaborator the architect Jimenez Donoso, with whom he also worked on the decoration of the triumphal arch erected in honor of Queen Maria Luisa d’Orléans. Other frescoes of his are in the church of the Augustinians in Saragossa (1683), and one of his large paintings, depicting Carlo II kneeling before the Host, is in the sacristy of the Escorial. Numerous paintings by him are preserved in the Prado Museum in Madrid, among them: The Madonna and Child among the Theological Virtues and Saints, The Madonna and Child Adored by S. Luigi, King of France, S. Domenico di Guzman, S. Rosa da Lima, and The Triumph of S. Domenico.
C. is to be regarded as one of the most significant exponents of seventeenth-century Spanish painting.
COENA DOMINI (IN): V. BULLA IN COENA DOMINI.