The Family of the Infante Don Luis

In the summer of 1783 the young Goya was invited to an estate near Avila by Luis of Spain, a brother of the king who had given up a cardinal's hat to marry a woman far below his rank and had been quietly pushed out of court life for it. Goya painted the whole household gathered around a table at night, by candlelight, as Don Luis plays cards before bed. Servants, children, and courtiers all share the warm gloom with no great show of rank. Then look to the far left, at the man seated with his back to us at a canvas, brush in hand, glancing over his shoulder. That is Goya himself, painting the scene from inside it, a direct nod to the way Velazquez had put himself into Las Meninas a century before. It is the largest Goya to be found outside Spain.