Miguel de Múzquiz y Goyeneche

In 1783 Miguel de Múzquiz sat near the top of Charles III's government, the finance minister who had run Spain's treasury since the 1760s. That same year the king made him Count of Gausa, a good moment to sit for an official portrait, and he turned to a painter he already knew a little. As the minister overseeing the royal tapestry works, Múzquiz had been signing off the invoices for the cartoons a young Goya was delivering through the late 1770s. So this is Goya still early in his career, painting the very official who had been paying him. The heavy gold trim and the cross on his coat are the honours the crown had just handed him, worn here as the plain furniture of high office.