Tomás Pérez de Estala

Goya painted this businessman around 1795, and the choice of sitter says something about the moment. Tomas Perez de Estala ran the royal textile works at Segovia, one of the new manufacturers Spain was leaning on to modernise its economy. He holds a rolled sheet of paper, wears a plain blue coat, and looks out with the steady confidence of a man who makes things and sells them. Goya himself had just come through the illness of 1793 that left him permanently deaf, and had lately been made director of painting at the Royal Academy. He would spend the next years moving between portraits like this one, of merchants and ministers, and the dark private work no client ever asked him for.