Cardinal Luis María de Borbón y Vallabriga

The young man in cardinal's red spent his childhood outside his own family name. His father was the Infante Luis, brother of Carlos III, and his mother, María Teresa de Vallabriga, came from the minor nobility, a marriage that pushed the whole household away from court. Only in 1799, when Luis María was made archbishop of Seville, did Carlos IV let him use his father's surname. The next year, at 23, he was a cardinal and archbishop of Toledo. The decorations across his chest work as a calendar. He wears the order of Charles III, given to him in 1793, with the Neapolitan orders of Saint Ferdinand of Merit and Saint Januarius, given in 1800 and 1802, so the picture cannot have been finished before 1802, which is where the museum dates it. Official portraits like this were made in several versions, and the one in São Paulo is generally taken for the first.