The Infante Don Antonio Pascual of Bourbon and Saxony (?)
1763. Pastel on paper. Room 039Facing the viewer in this half-length portrait, the Infante holds a shotgun and wears the insignias of the Golden Fleece and of the orders of Saint Gennaro and the Saint-Esprit on his chest.
While this painting was identified by Ezquerra del Bayo as a likeness of the Infante Gabriel, it might, instead, be of the Infante Antonio Pasual, who was born in Naples in 1755 and died in 1817. Here, he appears to be seven or eight years old, and if we accept that Tiepolo’s series of child portraits was painted around 1763 or shortly thereafter, then the dates would coincide. The other portrait of the Infante from this period is a very well-known likeness by Mengs, now at the Museo del Prado (P02187), in which the child appears somewhat older and thinner, with a more angular face. The rounded, infantile cheeks visible in the present portrait have vanished, although he has the same cleft chin.
This may be the portrait mentioned in the 1774 Inventory of the New Palace as number 13,420 "in the dome that served for the late queen mother’s housekeeping," as it is described as "half-length, wearing armor, of pastel, an Infante of the House of Portugal, one rod high and three-quarters wide." Along with D07435, D07428, D07438, D07421 y D07422, this must be one of the portraits attributed to one of Tiepolo’s sons, mentioned in the 1794 Inventory of the New Palace in Madrid.
The Museo del Prado’s 1879 Inventory of Drawings attributes it to the French School, identifying it by the previous inventory number and mentioning that the sitter holds a shotgun (Text drawn from Mena Marqués, M.: Catálogo de dibujos. VII. Dibujos italianos del siglo XVIII y del siglo XIX, Museo del Prado, 1990, pp. 149-150).