Portrait of Don Miguel De Lardizábal

By 1815 the French were gone from Spain and Ferdinand VII was back on the throne, settling scores with anyone whose loyalty during the war looked doubtful. Don Miguel de Lardizábal, born in New Spain, in what is now Mexico, had steered through all of it, and at that moment he was the king's minister for the Indies. Goya paints him holding a letter, and on it, in Latin, a line about being cast out by the storms of the state, a nod to the years Lardizábal had spent in exile. The face is built up in pale, fine strokes over a black ground, alert and a little wary. He had reason to be. Within months of this portrait he lost the king's favour and was banished once more.