Charles IV of Spain

Goya painted this in 1789, the year Charles IV came to the Spanish throne after his father's death, and the same year a revolution broke out across the Pyrenees in France that would in time reach the Bourbons in Madrid. None of that shows here. The new king stands in court dress, a blue velvet coat lined with white satin and thickly embroidered, the collar of the Golden Fleece at his neck, the crown and the ermine mantle half-hidden behind him. Across his chest is the sash of the order his own father founded and named for himself. Goya had just been named a painter to the king, and official likenesses were part of the job: this canvas is one of the repetitions made from the accession portraits, and some specialists give the hand in it to his workshop, with Agustín Esteve helping.