He had only attended eight grades when his mother died of the cholera, and young Ignazio was variously employed as a silversmith, a painter of tiles, and a decorator of fans.

When he returned to his native city in 1874, he abandoned the conventional historic themes he had so far devoted his efforts to, and instead started painting family subjects, nude figures, and scenes from daily life, thereby anticipating Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida and Francisco Domingo both in subject and style.

He returned to Rome in 1876, having obtained a grant from the Diputación de València, this time staying for five years.

[1] In 1884, due to a cholera epidemic in Valencia, Pinazo temporarily moved to the town of Bétera, where he stayed in the villa "Maria" of the banker Jose Jaumandreu.

Ignazio Pinazo worked with dark colours: black, brown and other earth-like shades, as well as in the scintillating palette typical of Impressionism.