Goya y Arenas de San Pedro

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes was born in Fuendetodos in 1746. He was the son of a gilder and showed artistic inclinations from his earliest childhood. From humble beginnings, he traveled to Italy by his means to study. On his return, he began to earn money by gradually accepting various commissions and adapting himself to the tastes of his patrons. Mengs called him to the Court to paint cartoons for the tapestries of the Real Fábrica de Santa Bárbara. In 1778 he won the support of the Secretary of State, the Count of Floridablanca, and the Secretary of the Academy of San Fernando, Antonio Ponz. Two years later, he was recognized as an academician of merit in that academy and began a period full of activity as a portraitist of the highest aristocracy. It was during this time that he met the Infante D. Luis de Borbón, who invited him to his palace in Arenas de San Pedro to paint his family. Goya visited him twice, in the summers of 1783 and 1784. During this time, he not only painted but also accompanied the prince on hunts or visited the palace, at the express invitation of the couple, along with his wife, who was eight months pregnant and was presented with a silver and gold robe. During the time that Goya stayed with the family, he painted 16 portraits, 6 of which are represented in life-size copies in the room where we are and in the tearoom: The portraits of the Infante Don Luis and María Teresa in profile, which dominate the room. The one of the wife on horseback, currently in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. The one of his daughter María Teresa with the Sierra de Gredos in the background, currently in the National Gallery of Washington. That of his son Luis María in the Cabinet surrounded by maps, which is preserved in the Museum of Zaragoza. The portrait of the whole family is in the Magnani Rocca Foundation in Parma. The latter is the first family portrait painted by Goya and gives the work an air of intimacy. The Infante is shown in profile playing cards. His wife, facing the viewer while combing her hair, stands out with her pale tones and forms a symmetrical axis in the work. His children and several servants appear and are a great source of speculation among experts, who do not agree on the identity of all of them. The light seems to come from a candle, and the artist portrays himself in a corner on a small stool while working on a canvas. It presents a certain frontality, there is no space between the figures, and this makes it an atypical composition in Spanish painting as a whole. In the tearoom, there is a painting of Maria Teresa in the entrance portico with Gredos in the background.