A month after giving her approval to the portrait Goya had painted of her in a mantilla in September 1799, Queen Maria Luisa wrote to Manuel Godoy, “I want you to have a copy made by Esteve”. Indeed, Esteve painted several replicas of official portraits of the monarchs for official institutions. This earned him his appointment as court painter in June 1800. The present copy is from Godoy’s collect
Michel-Ange Houasse, son of the painter René-Antoine Houasse (c.1645-1710), had enjoyed a long career during the reign of Louis XIV of France (r.1643-1715). From 1715 until his death, Michel-Ange worked in the court in Madrid during the reign of the first Bourbon monarch, Philip V (r.1700-24 and 1724-46), creating interesting landscape paintings, genre scenes, religious paintings and portra
This image of King Charles III was paired with a portrait of his wife, Maria Amalia of Saxony (P2201), although the image of the queen was not painted in her presence. Instead, it was invented on the basis of other likenesses, as she died before the artist was able to paint her.Mengs’s effigie of Charles III became the monarch’s official image and was therefore the object of various replicas. One
An allegorical image that alludes to the City Government of Madrid´s gift of the mansion called the “Queen´s Casino” to Queen Isabel de Braganza on the occasion of her wedding to King Fernando VII (1784-1833) in 1816. This work was inspired by the compositions of Corrado Giaquinto´s frescos for Madrid´s Royal Palace and was painted to decorate the ceiling of the main salon of the mansion itself, a
Part of a series of 118 views of Spanish ports, bays, islands, arsenals, etc. that Charles IV, King of Spain, commissioned in 1781 when he was Prince of Asturias and that kept the artist busy until 1803.
Painted in Florence, this canvas depicts Prince Luis I of Parma (1773-1803), who had died the previous year, and his wife, the Infanta María Luisa (1782-1824), daughter of Charles IV of Spain and María Luisa of Parma. Also included are their children, Carlo Ludovico (1799-1883), heir to the throne, and María Luisa Carlota (1802-1857), future wife of Maximilian, Prince of Saxon
Se ve un plato, del tipo “castañuela”, de borde historiado -siguiendo un diseño popular- que posiblemente posea un origen talaverano; ejerce el papel de recipiente desbordado por las ciruelas, algunas en ramo, que lo colman. A un lado, sobre una servilleta doblada, una rosca de pan refleja con acierto el impacto de la luz; al otro, tres higos rellenan el vacío de la izquierda, procurando equilibra
Considerado como obra de Antonio Carnicero (1748-1814), Arturo Ansón Navarro (2012) lo atribuyó a Ramón Bayeu por motivos estilísticos y por su relación documental con una serie de retratos de la familia real pintados por Bayeu hacia 1791. Según estos documentos, Ramón Bayeu, nombrado pintor de cámara el 20 de abril de 1791, pintó en ese año y en el Real Sitio de Aranjuez los retratos de varios hi
A frontal view of the Queen. She sits, wearing a red silk dress with white sleeves and bonnet. Her right arm rests very naturally on a table, while her left holds a book. She is marking one of the pages with her finger as though she had just interrupted her reading. This is quite common in female portraits. Maria Amalia was born to Friedrich Augustus III, King of Poland and elector of Saxony; and
Forma parte de la serie de bodegones reunidos por el futuro Carlos IV de España y María Luisa de Borbón-Parma cuando aún eran príncipes de Asturias, para su Gabinete de Historia Natural del Palacio Real de Madrid. La documentación no llega a ponerse de acuerdo en la cantidad de obras realizadas por Meléndez para esta serie, barajándose un número entre treinta y siete y cuarenta y cinco pinturas. E
Juan de Arellano specialised in painting pictures of flowers, which brought him great artistic and financial success. Here, he depicts a wicker container with a bouquet of tulips, roses, campanulas and other species. The flowers have been pruned, and while some still retain their freshness, others have begun to wilt and have fallen on the stone pedestal. The artist merges elements of Flemish origi
Sánchez worked at the Madrid court and was commissioned to paint several views of the regions of Spain, with particular emphasis on ports, during the reign of Charles III. This painting belongs to a long series of panoramic views by the artist, infused with a flavour that is more topographical than artistic. The bridge at Molins de Rey (Barcelona) was built between 1763 and 1767 and was dem
This work is a copy of the portrait painted by Goya in 1799. It was made for the royal favourite Manuel Godoy, whose collection was confiscated following his fall from power in 1808. Charles wears the Golden Fleece and the sashes and badges of the orders of Charles III and Saint Januarius, the badges of the four Spanish orders of Santiago, Calatrava, Alcántara and Montesa, and that of the o
This flower painting brings to mind works the artist gave to the Prince of Asturias, Charles of Bourbon, in 1788. Shortly before he took the throne as King Charles IV. An early interest in art in general, and painting in particular, led this monarch to amass an excellent collection at his residence near the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, and the numerals (360) that appear on this panel c
A bustling crowd gathers to watch King Ferdinand VII and his second wife, Isabel of Braganza, out in the royal boats on the placid waters of the Retiro lake. This is a fine example of classical landscape painting in the reign of Ferdinand VII, and echoes the style favoured by leading view painters at court, such as Fernando Brambilla.
This still life is one of the forty-four such painting which Meléndez painted for the natural history cabinet of Charles Prince of Asturias. The artist had conceived this vast visual natural history of the flora and fauna of Spain in still-life paintings as the greatest work of his career. The project was curtailed by the prince in 1777, however, due to the large number of pictures already