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Portrait of Don Francisco de Saavedra

Maker

(artist)
1746-1828

Title

Date of Production

1798

Medium

medium : material : oil; support : material : canvas

Dimensions

Height: 200.2 cm (canvas)
Width: 119.6 cm (canvas)

Accession Number

P.1947.LF.180

Mode of Acquisition

Arthur Hamilton Lee, bequest, 1947

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

On display

Keywords

Label Text

The loose brushwork and speed of execution in this painting contrast with the usual formality and polish of full-length portraits at the time. With only a few strokes of paint, Goya rendered the texture of the sitter’s silk coat, as well as the papers and inkwells on the table. Only Francisco de Saavedra’s face and hands have been carefully and thickly modelled. Saavedra was the Spanish Minister of Finance when he posed for Goya. The painting was commissioned by his friend and then Minister of Justice, Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, perhaps to accompany his own portrait by Goya (now in the Prado Museum, Madrid). Both men were eager to bring reform to the conservative Spanish government and embodied a new, but short-lived, moment of progressive thinking.

Provenance

Alejandro Pidal y Mon (1846-1913), Madrid; -Sold by intermediaries Mr Lafond and Dominguez to Goupil & Co., Paris, 20 July 1910; -Purchased from them by Baron Denys Cochin (1851-1922), Paris, 22 July 1911; -His sale, Galerie Petit, Paris, 26 March 1919 (lot 14, reproduced); buyer unknown; -Purchased by Knoedler from the London dealer Sulley, January 1921; -Purchased from them by Baron Marczell von Nemes (1866-1930), Budapest and Munich, in 1926; -His sale, Salle des Ventes Frederik Muller & Cie, Amsterdam, 13-14 November 1928 (lot 35); purchased at the sale by the dealers J.& S. Goldschmidt, Frankfurt for Viscount Lee of Fareham; Lee Bequest 1947

Exhibition History

Goya, Fragonard, Tiepolo. The Freedom of Imagination, Hamburger Kunsthalle, 13/12/2019-31/05/2020

Goya: The Portraits, National Gallery, London, 07/10/2015-10/01/2016

Display with permanent collection, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 01/09/1997-01/06/1998

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