Porträt des Valentín Bellvís de Moncada y Pizarro

Goya painted this around 1795, just as Spain was ending a hard border war with Revolutionary France. After the French executed their king, Spain had joined the fight against the new republic, and the young man here, Valentin Bellvis de Moncada, had commanded troops on that Pyrenean front between 1793 and 1795. He came home in 1795 to marry, and to sit for Goya in the full dress of a senior army officer. He leans on a cane with easy confidence, and his coat is drawn back just enough to show the hilt of his sword. The portrait stayed with his descendants and was barely known to the public until it resurfaced for sale early in this century.