Charles II of Spain

In February 1680 the Spanish government cut the value of its copper coinage in half overnight. Prices crashed, trade seized up, and the crown spent years working out what it had done. The king in this small canvas was about 19. He had been on the throne since the age of three, with his mother and then a run of ministers governing in his name. Carreño, his court painter, hands him the standard equipment of Spanish majesty: black dress, a plain dark ground, the Golden Fleece on his breast. The painting divides in two under inspection. The face is worked out feature by feature, while the cloth and the ornament go on in loose strokes that suggest more than they define, which is what Carreño took from Velázquez. The museum places the canvas around 1680 by reading the king's features against an earlier portrait of him now in Austria. This was the likeness the monarchy sent out. More than 20 copies of the model are known, and this is the version tied directly to Carreño's own hand.