Portrait of King Charles IV as Prince of Asturias
Ca. 1765. Oil.On display elsewhere
Mengs had a profound influence on the younger generation of Spanish painters, notably on the Bayeus, Maella, Inza, Goya and Vicente López Portaña. His Neoclassical style was diametrically opposed to Tiepolo´s, whose style and paintings were falling out of fashion. The Spanish Collections hold many of his portraits. He was a refined and skyfull court painter with exquisite technique, enamel-bright colors, minutely detailed fabrics and jewelry, and flesh tones as fine and luminous as porcelain. This portrait is a copy of original, also owned by the Prado and traditionally dated circa 1765. It is believed to be the official portrait commissioned for the engagement of the Prince and Princess María Luisa. Though undocumented, this assumption is based on the fact that so many copies of this portrait exist. Aesthetically and technically it draws inspiration from Velázquez, especially in the positioning of the figure and his surrounding. Yet it lacks the magical touch found in Velázquez´s court portrait. Charles, Prince of Asturias (Portici, 1748-Naples,1819) was the son of Charles III and María Amalia of Saxony. He married his cousin, María Luisa of Parma, the daughter of Philip of Bourbon, Duke of Parma, and of Luisa Isabel of France, in 1765. In 1788, he succeeded to the throne as Charles IV. He was overthrown in 1808 and exiled, with his wife, the Queen, to Rome, as a prisioner of Napoleon. He died in Naples without ever returning to Spain. Mengs emphasizes the volume of this figure by placing it squarely on the foreground, and backlighting it. The Prince is in a gray coat, suede waistcoat, and high black leather boots, wearing sashes of the Orders of Saint Esprit and San Gennaro and the insignia of the Golden Fleece. In the background is a forest with deer, a landscape suggesting a hunting preserve near Madrid, perhaps the Pardo. This portrait was intended as a matched pair with the Portrait of Queen María Luisa as a Princess of Asturias (P007131) (Text drawn from Luna Fernández, Juan J., The Majesty of Spain, Jackson, Mississippi, 2001, p. 70).
The Majesty of Spain. Royal collections from the Museo del Prado and the Patrimonio Nacional presented by The Mississippi Commission for International Cultural Exchange, Jackson, Mississipi Commission For International Cultural Exchange, 2001, p.70
