Calle de Sebastián Herrera

Sebastián de Herrera Barnuevo was born in Madrid in 1619 and learned the trade in the workshop of his father, a sculptor in the service of Philip IV. When Alonso Cano came to court in 1638, the young Herrera entered his studio and became his right hand. From that apprenticeship emerged an artist able to paint, sculpt, and design buildings with equal ease. In 1662 he was named chief master of the Royal Works, and in 1667 painter of the chamber. He designed the funeral monument for Philip IV in 1665, which set the model for the courtly catafalques that followed, and rebuilt the Dominican church of Atocha after the fire of 1652. He died in 1671, the same year he still sat on the commission overseeing work on the Toledo bridge, a short step from this neighborhood. His name reached Arganzuela when the area began to be laid out in streets in the late 19th century, in a plan where several streets honor artists of the Golden Age.