Carlo III in abito da caccia

Goya painted the aging Charles III as a hunter around 1786, standing in a royal game preserve with his shotgun and a dog dozing at his boots. It is a deliberately plain, weathered face for a king, and Goya borrowed the whole format from Velazquez, whose hunting portraits of an earlier royal family he had been studying in the palace collection. The homage paid off. Portraits like this one helped convince the court of his gift, and soon after he was named painter to the king. Look at the dog's collar and you can read a tiny inscription, REY N.o S.r, Spanish for Our Lord the King. Charles was near 70 here and would be dead within two years.