General Antonio Ricardos

In 1793 Spain went to war with the young French Republic, and General Antonio Ricardos led the Spanish army across the Pyrenees into Roussillon, winning the campaign that made him a national figure. He died early in 1794, and Goya's portrait was finished around the time of his death, the third gold braid on the cuff added because it was awarded only after his final battle. Goya had his own reasons to feel the ground shifting. A severe illness in 1792 had left him permanently deaf, and he was slowly turning from a genial court decorator into the darker, sharper painter of his later years. That sharpness shows here in the watchful face rather than in the uniform, which he renders with every sash and order of chivalry intact.