Charles IV in Court Dress

In 1789 Charles IV had just come to the Spanish throne, and Goya, newly named painter to the king, had to turn out official likenesses of the new monarch for institutions across Spain. This full-length was among the portraits made for the meeting hall of the Royal Academy of History in Madrid. The king stands in a red coat worked with silver, the Golden Fleece at his collar and a commander's staff in his hand, the standard grammar of royal authority. That same summer, across the Pyrenees, a Paris crowd stormed the Bastille and began pulling down a monarchy much like this one.