Ferdinand VI as a Child

Jean Ranc had been in Madrid barely a year when he painted this. Philip V, the first Bourbon on the Spanish throne, brought him down from Paris in 1722 to do for the court at Madrid what Ranc's teacher Hyacinthe Rigaud was doing for the one at Versailles. The boy is ten, and it is on his age alone that the museum dates the canvas to around 1723, since Ferdinand was born in Madrid in September 1713. The blue sash across the salmon coat is the ribbon of the French Order of the Holy Spirit, and the Golden Fleece hangs at his chest. He was a younger son then, with no expectation of ruling. In January 1724 Philip abdicated in favour of the elder boy, Luis. Luis was dead of smallpox by August, the father took the crown back, and Ferdinand waited 23 years for it. Down in the lower left corner, painted straight onto the canvas, is the number 413, which the picture carried in the inventories of the royal palace of La Granja.