Vicente Osorio de Moscoso, comte de Trastámara

In 1786 Goya was named painter to the king of Spain, the post he had been climbing toward for years, and commissions from the great families followed. Among his new patrons was the Count of Altamira, one of the richest men in the country, whose children Goya painted one after another. This is the eldest son, Vicente, shown as a small boy in the stiff finery a noble child was dressed in for a portrait. His younger brother sits in the most famous picture of the group, the red-suited boy with his pet magpie now in New York. Goya gives this child a grave, grown-up composure and sets him against a plain dark ground, so nothing competes with the pale face and the costly clothes.