Portrait of Infante Don Luis de Borbon

c. 1776

Anton Raphael Mengs

(German, 1728–1779)

Culture

Germany, 18th century

Medium

oil on canvas

Measurements

Framed: 180.5 x 127 x 8 cm (71 1/16 x 50 x 3 1/8 in.); Unframed: 152.7 x 100 cm (60 1/8 x 39 3/8 in.)

Credit Line

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1966.14

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Location

201 French Neoclassical Painting & Sculpture

Description

As a younger child of King Philip V of Spain, Don Luis received important religious posts, including Archbishop of Toledo and Seville. However, his philandering led to losing these titles and banishment from the court, while he became a crucial avant-garde art patron, especially of Goya. The encrustations of medals and cacophonous fabrics speak to Mengs's experiments in representing status, privilege, and royal honors in the age of Enlightenment, when rational skepticism began to confront absolutist, hereditary power.