This man, standing in the close foreground and occupying almost the entire height of the painting, is a soldier, as the various elements of his dress attest: the broad-brimmed hat, adorned with a feather, which he holds in his left hand; the sash crossing his chest from which hangs a sword; the military cassock; the riding boots with one very visible spur. The richness of detail in the execution of the lace collar, the broad sash around his waist and the showy embroidery on his cuffs all reveal that he held a military commission. Next to him is a table on which two pistols lie. In the middle of the crimson cloth hanging over the table´s forward edge is a coat of arms, whose heraldic inaccuracies suggest that it was a later addition to the canvas. We can also identify this character as a military man by means of his body language and facial expression. He is standing firmly on the ground in a dynamic three-quarter stance. His long hair, pointed moustache and fixed, determined gaze corroborate the idea that he is a man of action. His right arm is bent with his hand on his hip, a gesture full of self-confidence. It is illustrative to compare this figure with the three soldiers who appear behind the Marquis of Santa Cruz in Antonio Pereda´s The relief of Genoa 1634 (P07126), noting how they share a common sartorial and gestural language. An inscription in the lower left corner of the painting, discovered when it was cleaned around 1870, identifies the sitter as Don Tiburcio de Redín, the Baron of Bigüezal (1597-1651). As the painting (and his biography) reveal, Redín was a fierce, swaggering soldier who achieved the ranks of field marshal and general in the navy, and fought in several military conflicts that the Spanish monarchy was immersed in at the time. In 1638, at the age of 41, Redín made a decision that today might seem surprising for someone with his history: he joined the order of the Capuchins as a lay brother. From that point forward, he was known as Friar Francisco de Pamplona. However, this transition from military life -so bloody, so worldly, so full of fighting- to a life of religion or solitude was frequent in Spain at the time, as is evident in the autobiography of Alonso de Contreras or in the figure of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, who founded the Jesuit order after having served as a soldier. Redín, meanwhile, is a paradigmatic example; following his admittance into the Capuchin order, he began an intense effort as a missionary, which took him to the Congo and South America, where he died. There are many questions around the authorship of this portrait. The subject´s placement in an indeterminate space, the loose brushwork and the fact that the painting belonged to the Royal Collections led some to attribute it to Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo, Velázquez´s son-in-law. In 1904, however, the painter and Velázquez scholar Aureliano de Beruete rejected that attribution, arguing instead that it was the work of Rizi. This subsequent opinion has enjoyed more advocates up to the present, though it remains uncertain, for there are insufficient surviving works by Rizi with which to compare it. The pictorial language of the portrait is marked by much looser and more agile brushwork than is habitual in this painter from the Benedictine order. If it is the work of Rizi, he could have painted it around 1635 when he was in Montserrat and the sitter was a general in the Catalan infantry. Regardless, this splendid work expresses like none other the reputation for ferocity and arrogance that was frequently associated with the soldiers in the Spanish imperial army (Portús, J.: Portrait of Spain. Masterpieces from the Prado, Queensland Art Gallery-Art Exhibitions Australia, 2012, p. 102).