Portrait of Tiburcio Pérez y Cuervo, the Architect

Goya painted this in 1820, just after the illness of 1819 that nearly killed him and that he recorded in a startling picture of himself collapsing in his doctor's arms. Tiburcio Pérez was a young Madrid architect and a close friend. Goya gives him almost nothing to stand on, a bare grey wall, no drawings, no instruments, nothing to announce his trade. He crosses his arms, his white shirtsleeves loosely rolled to the elbow, and looks straight out at you. Goya was 74 when he set down that gaze.