The Petit Palais is presenting the first French retrospective ever devoted to Jusepe de Ribera (1591-1652), the celebrated heir to Caravaggio, whom his contemporaries considered ‘darker and more ferocious’ than the great Italian master. Born in Spain, he spent his entire career in Italy, first in Rome and then in Naples.

Whether painting saints, beggars, philosophers or mythological figures, Ribera always based his figures on living models whose realism give his art an extraordinary theatrical power, further enhanced by his dramatic use of light and dark.

With over a hundred paintings, drawings and prints from international collections the exhibition retraces for the first time Ribera's entire career: the Roman years, only recently rediscovered, and the climactic Neapolitan period, which led to his meteoric rise to fame. Ribera stands out as one of the earliest and boldest interpreters of the Caravaggesque revolution and as one of the leading artists of the Baroque age.