Portrait de Jacques Galos

By 1826 Goya was 80, deaf, and living out his last years as a voluntary exile in Bordeaux, across the border from a Spain he no longer wished to return to. Jacques Galos was one of the men who made that exile comfortable, a Bordeaux banker who handled the transfer of Goya's royal pension from Madrid and helped keep his finances in order. Goya painted him around the time of a last short trip home, in loose, rapid strokes, a blue coat and a steady, intelligent look. It is the work of a very old man still in complete command of his hand. Goya died in Bordeaux two years later, in 1828.