Un ufficiale (probabilmente il conte di Teba)

By about 1804 Goya was the leading portraitist in Spain, first painter to the king and long since deaf, reading faces with unusual sharpness. This young officer in uniform is caught almost in passing, turning as if just interrupted. His identity is not settled. He is tentatively named as the Count of Teba, a soldier tied to Spain's colonial affairs whose wife held large estates in Mexico. Goya keeps the background bare and lets the pale face and the steady, slightly wary look do the work. Henry Clay Frick, the American steel magnate, bought the picture in 1914, which is how a nameless Spanish officer came to hang on a wall in New York.