This canvas depicts the liberation of the city of Brisach on October 16, 1633, following its besiegement by the Protestant Count of the Rheingau, Otto Ludwig von Salms. Its liberation marked the culmination of the Duke of Feria’s 1633 campaign to maintain free communication between the Milanesado, Germany and the Netherlands. The city of Brisach played a strategic role in this line of communication. And yet, like other battles commemorated in the Hall of Realms, this was a fleeting victory, as Brisach was lost just five years later, on December 17, 1638. The canvas shows the Duke of Feria, Gómez Suárez de Figueroa, in the foreground. Here, as in Carducho’s depictions of him, he is outfitted with a segmented cuirass. He wears a red general’s sash and holds a command staff in his right hand. Seen from the back, he rides a rearing horse and turns his head to listen to a young officer standing on the left and pointing to the battlefield, and to a halberdier who approaches his horse. He is accompanied by a group of armored riders. The middle ground is occupied by foot soldiers with blunderbusses, and further back, the halberdiers, who handle the flags and munitions carts. A burning fort stands between them and the city of Brisach, in the background. Spanish troops are already entering the city. While this work has the same compositional arrangement as Carducho’s paintings for the Hall of Realms, it also clearly reflects Velázquez’s approach. The lances in the foreground recall The Surrender of Breda (P1172) and the Duke of Feria’s pose here is generally thought to have been taken from Velázquez’s portrait, The Count-Duke of Olivares, on Horseback (P1181), although Velázquez’s portrait has not been firmly dated. It is therefore possible that both works may have drawn on some earlier shared precedent. In any case, Leonardo’s move towards naturalism and the lessons he had clearly learned from Velázquez are firmly established in the figure of the young officer in the foreground.

Museo Nacional del Prado, El Palacio del Rey Planeta, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2005, p.140