Portrait of Juan Agustín Ceán Bermúdez

The man in this dark, plainly dressed portrait was one of Goya's friends and one of the most useful people in the Spanish art world of his day. Juan Agustín Ceán Bermúdez was a scholar and critic who, in 1800, published the first serious dictionary of Spanish artists, six volumes tracking down painters and sculptors across the country. Much of what we still know about earlier Spanish art passed through his research. Goya paints him without any of the pomp he gave to dukes and ministers, just a quiet, friendly face and a pencil held in one hand, a nod to the writing and drawing that were his life. The two moved in the same reforming, Enlightenment circles in Madrid, and Ceán would later defend Goya's work in print.