Charles IV on Horseback

By 1800 Goya was first painter to the Spanish crown, and for this equestrian portrait he reached back more than 150 years to Velazquez, whose mounted royals hung in the old Hall of Realms and which Goya had copied as etchings in his younger days. Charles IV sits his horse in the uniform of a colonel of the royal guard, the sash of the Order of Carlos III across his chest. It was made as a companion to a matching portrait of his wife, Queen Maria Luisa, also on horseback, also in a colonel's uniform. Within a decade this settled royal world would come apart, as Napoleon's armies pushed into Spain and Charles gave up his throne.