Juan Francisco Pimentel, conde de Benavente

This was painted in 1648, and it can be dated almost to the month, because the sitter wears the collar of the Golden Fleece, an honour he received only that May. He is the Count of Benavente, a Spanish grandee and general who had led troops against the revolts in Portugal and Catalonia, and he is shown half-length in dark armour with the crimson sash of high command, his helmet and baton laid on a table. The Prado catalogues the picture as attributed to Velazquez rather than flatly as his: Spanish scholarship has given it to him since 1819, but Jonathan Brown left it out of his catalogue of the painter's work, unconvinced by the handling of the armour and the sash. Whoever held the brush, it was finished just before Velazquez left Madrid on his second journey to Italy, where he would paint the pope.