La Famille de Philippe V

Philip V was a French prince, a grandson of Louis the Fourteenth, placed on the Spanish throne in 1700, and the whole point of a portrait like this was to show that his new Bourbon dynasty had taken root. Jean Ranc, a French painter working at the Madrid court, laid out the royal family here around 1723, gathering the king, his second wife Isabella Farnese and their children in a grand hall. The room deliberately recalls the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, the palace where Philip had been born. This canvas is only a sketch. The large finished picture it was preparing is now lost, and Ranc kept adjusting the design as more royal children arrived.