[1] Among his teachers were Eduardo Cano, recognized for his historical paintings and winner of the National Exhibition of Fine Arts of 1856, and Joaquín Domínguez Bécquer, another representative of the Sevillian pictorial school of the second half of the 19th century.

[1] In 1886, Mattoni was named a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando de Madrid.

[1] Commissioned to paint murals and altarpieces in a number of religious settings, Mattoni experimented with medieval techniques of gilding and embossing and used color and light as compositional elements.

[citation needed] In 1881, he was awarded the Second Medal of the National Exhibition of Fine Arts for his painting Las termas de Caracalla.

[4] Although his view of the ancient Imperial thermal complex of the early third century CE, informed by his previous visit to Rome, cannot be matched with any archaeological evidence from the existing ruins, it is considered his most important work.