Ferdinand Guillemardet

A few years before he sat for this portrait, Ferdinand Guillemardet had helped vote a king to death. As a deputy of the French Convention he backed the execution of Louis XVI in 1793, and in 1798 the new Republic sent this regicide to Madrid as its first ambassador, to a court still ruled by a Bourbon king. Goya, the court’s own painter, gave him the swagger to match. He sits with his legs crossed and his gaze level, and the blue, white and red of the Revolution blaze out of his sash and from the plumed hat on the table. It was the first time Goya had painted a Frenchman. Guillemardet took the picture home when he was recalled, and his son later left it to the Louvre.