Charles III of Spain

Charles III of Spain would rather have been hunting than doing almost anything else, and Goya painted him as exactly that, an old king in worn hunting clothes, gun in hand, a dog dozing at his feet. This was around 1786, when Goya had only recently reached the royal court. He knew how a Spanish king should look outdoors, because eight years earlier he had made etched copies of Velazquez's hunting portraits of earlier rulers. The pose is borrowed from them. Charles was in his late 60s here and had only a couple of years left to live. On the dog's collar Goya lettered a small inscription naming its owner, the king himself.