For its gallery of portraits of illustrious Puerto Rican men, the Ateneo Puertorriqueño commissioned

For its gallery of portraits of illustrious Puerto Rican men, the Ateneo Puertorriqueño commissioned Francisco Oller to paint this posthumous portrait of one of the island’s most popular writers, José Gautier Benítez. A Romantic poet and fervent nationalist, much of Benítez’s work was dedicated to praising the geography and people of his native island. Although he died of tuberculosis at the age twenty-nine, Oller portrays the writer very much alive and in the landscape he treasured, emphasizing the flowering thistle native to Puerto Rico in the foreground beside its beloved poet. Posted by Serda YalkinFrancisco Oller (Puerto Rican, 1833–1917) José Gautier Benítez, circa 1885–86. Ateneo Puertorriqueño, San Juan, Puerto Rico -- source link

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