This full-length portrait by Pompeo Batoni shows a young English nobleman dressed in a scarlet coat, posing against the Roman countryside. The picture conforms to the Grand Tour portrait model of which Batoni, together with other artists such as Anton Raphael Mengs, became a leading practitioner, attaining success particularly among British patrons. Here the sitter is holding a walking stick and a
Mounted on a white steed and flanked by an angel bearing a flag, Saint James gallops over a multitude of fallen Moors and horses. The battle scene occupies a rocky landscape in the middle ground. This canvas is a sketch for the elliptical dome at the entrance to the Royal Palace’s chapel and was painted by Giaquinto between 1756 and 1757. The canvas and its corresponding fresco are clearly derived
Francisco Javier (1757-1771), youngest son of Charles III and Maria Amalia of Saxony, was painted by Mengs in the Palace of San Ildefonso, Segovia, as were his brothers, Antonio and Gabriel. The pose and expression are particularly natural and the traditional accessories of royal portraiture are reduced to the column, curtain and insignias of the Orders of the Golden Fleece, Santiago and San Genna
Corrado Giaquinto had frequent contacts with Spain as of 1735 or earlier. But the death of Jacopo Amigoni in 1752 led to his being summoned to Madrid the next year. During his stay in the Spanish Court, he earned the highest honors given to a painter in that era. He became First Painter to the Court in August 1753 and director of the Academy of San Fernando that December. His main mission was the
Ferdinand III bears a sword and the globe of the world in his hands while the kneeling Moorish king presents him the keys to the city, visible in the background. A lion appears on the left, and each king is flanked by his respective retinue. The Museo del Prado’s 1920 catalog attributed this painting to Amigoni (following the 1794 palace inventory) but it is actually a sketch for a painting by Fli
El retratado es Fernando de Borbón Parma (1751-1802), hijo de Felipe de Borbón, duque de Parma e infante de España, y de Luisa Isabel de Francia, hija de Luis XV. Su condición de nieto del rey Felipe V explica la llegada de la pintura a las colecciones reales españolas, conservando el Museo del Prado otro retrato suyo de igual procedencia que le representa en una edad algo más avanzada, debido a G
Seated on an ermine robe in a chair, the Infante holds his hat in his left hand and a small bird in his right. The insignias of the Golden Fleece and the Order of Saint Jennaro hang on his chest. The sitter’s facial features appear to match those of Charles III’s youngest son, Javier, who was born in Naples in 1757 and died prematurely in Aranjuez in 1771. The Museo del Prado has a portrait of him
Retrato de Pietro Tenerani, escultor que comenzó su formación en la Academia de Bellas Artes de Turín hasta que consiguió marchar a Roma en 1813. Se convirtió en la mano derecha del escultor Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844) y vivió de primera mano la enconada rivalidad entre su maestro y Antonio Canova (1757-1822). La carrera del turinés fue afianzándose gracias a sus creaciones y a su labor como pr
I am still learning, from the Bordeaux Sketchbook G, dates from around 1825-28, and may well be the drawing that best sums up Goya’s spirit in the final years of his life. In fact, it has become a recurrent referent in histories of this artist that cast it as a symbolic self-portrait expressive of the unwavering desire for personal development that led him to continue to set down his new ideas in
The Marquess of Salamanca sold Venus and Mars by Antonio Canova (1757-1822) to the Museo del Prado in 1881. At the time of acquisition, its attribution had been maintained for decades, but when Pavanello was cataloguing all of Canova’s work in 1976, he considered it a copy. While focusing on Canova’s workshop, Reyero thought the piece could have been made in the 1820s by someone in Canova’s inner
The 10th Marchioness of Villafranca del Bierzo (1757-1795), who was also painted by Goya, was the first wife of the 16th Marquis of Astorga, an important art collector. The Marchioness has a curious hairstyle fashionable at this period and wears the sash of the Order of María Luisa, a privilege reserved for thirty women of the upper Spanish nobility. Her coat-of-arms appears on the back of
Estampa que daba inicio al primer tomo de “Le antichità di Ercolano esposte…”, una publicación compuesta de 8 tomos ricamente ilustrados, editada en Nápoles entre 1757 y 1792. En ella se mostraban por primera vez los objetos arqueológicos hallados en las excavaciones de Herculano y alrededores, durante el reinado de Carlos VII de Nápoles (después, Carlos III de España). La estampa ilustraba la ded
Estampa que daba inicio al primer tomo de “Le antichità di Ercolano esposte…”, una publicación compuesta de 8 tomos ricamente ilustrados, editada en Nápoles entre 1757 y 1792. En ella se mostraban por primera vez los objetos arqueológicos hallados en las excavaciones de Herculano y alrededores, durante el reinado de Carlos VII de Nápoles (después, Carlos III de España). La estampa ilustraba la ded
Este retrato está pintado por algún artista lombardo o napolitano del último tercio del siglo XVIII. El modo de hacer por medio de puntos, tomado de las iluminaciones del siglo XVI, se impuso desde el momento en que Rosalba Carriera (1675-1757) lo aplicó a sus miniaturas.