The family of Charles IV, King of Spain
1789 - 1790. Yellow wash, Pencil ground, Grey-brown wash on yellow paper.Not on display
This study depicts Charles IV, King of Spain, standing on the left. His brother Antonio Pascual appears behind him. Almost in the centre, Queen María Luisa is seated with Prince Fernando on her right and with Princesses Carlota Joaquina and María Aurelia on her left. Behind, Carlos María Isidro and María Isabel may be represented in the arms of two ladies. If these identifications are accurate, as they are considered to be, the drawing would date to around 1789, immediately after the monarch’s accession to the throne in 1788. In any case, Princess María Luisa Josefina, whose age does not fit with any of the children depicted, would be missing from the drawing.
A small painting – an oil sketch – exactly copies this composition. Godoy attributed it to Goya when he gave it as a gift in his old age to the Marquess of Villavieja’s ancestors in 1849.
Beruete accepted the attribution and the idea that it was painted in 1798 on the occasion of the king’s proclamation. Mayer rejected the attribution; he thought it to have been by Bayeu or Maella. The drawing definitively settles the attribution in favour of the Valencian painter, of whose work it constitutes an excellent example: his desire to imitate Van Loo’s court portraits demonstrates that he was still highly influenced by rococo style.
The existence of another drawing from the Carderera Collection – which is of identical technique but simpler composition and most probably from a previous date, as only Carlos, María Luisa and the three older children appear – is an attestation to Maella’s having worked on this family portrait for some time. These drawings may be related to the 1792 claim that Maella painted portraits of the entire Royal Family, ‘repeating the very same portraits on many occasions by order of His Majesty with different objects from the Royal Service’.
S. Alcolea believes that the painting must have been planned around 1790, a date that seems to be too late judging by the ages of the princes who are portrayed.
Pérez Sánchez, Alfonso E., Catálogo de Dibujos. Vol. III. Dibujos Españoles, Siglo XVIII. C-Z, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, 1977, p.75
