A huge oil (307 × 462 cm) that José de Madrazo painted in Rome in 1807,
while on a scholarship there, and which the Museo del Prado considers the
most representative work of Spanish Neoclassicism. Lusitanian warriors
surround the body of Viriathus, murdered by treachery in 139 BC, and
swear revenge with raised arms.
Madrazo later became director of the Prado and was the father of
Federico de Madrazo, portraitist to the court of Isabella II, who ran
the museum too: between them they were in charge of it for much of the
nineteenth century.
