The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of September 30, 2022

Portrait of Infante Don Luis de Borbon

c. 1776

Anton Raphael Mengs

(German, 1728–1779)

Germany, 18th century

Oil on canvas

Framed: 180.5 x 127 x 8 cm (71 1/16 x 50 x 3 1/8 in.); Unframed: 152.7 x 100 cm (60 1/8 x 39 3/8 in.)

Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund 1966.14

Location

201 French Neoclassical Painting & Sculpture

Description

As a younger child of King Philip V of Spain, Don Luis received important religious posts, including Archbishop of Toledo and Seville. However, his philandering led to losing these titles and banishment from the court, while he became a crucial avant-garde art patron, especially of Goya. The encrustations of medals and cacophonous fabrics speak to Mengs's experiments in representing status, privilege, and royal honors in the age of Enlightenment, when rational skepticism began to confront absolutist, hereditary power.

Provenance
Maria Luisa, Duquesa de San Fernando, Madrid (youngest daughter of Don Luis, died 1847); Carlota Luisa, Duquesa de Sueca, Condesa da Chinchon, Boadilla del Monte (granddaughter of Don Luis, niece of Maria Luisa, died 1886); Adolfo Ruspoli, Duque de Sueca, Conde de Chinchon, Boadilla del Monte (son of Carlota Luisa, died, Paris, February 4, 1914; liquidation: Paris, February 7, 1914); Comte de Maubou, Paris; [Wildenstein & Co., New York]. Purchase, Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Bequest, 1966.
Citations
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 166 archive.org
Cleveland Museum of Art, “Golden Anniversary Acquisition,” 1966, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. archive.org
Stechow, Wolfgang. "Cleveland's Golden Anniversary Acquisitions." Artnews 65, no. 5 (September 1966): 30-64. Reproduced: p. 39; Mentioned p. 44, 62
Lee, Sherman E. "Golden Anniversary Acquisitions: September 10 through October 16." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 53, no. 7 (1966): 181-284. Reproduced: p. 216 www.jstor.org
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 166 archive.org
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 152 archive.org
The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Catalogue of Paintings, Part 3: European Paintings of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1982. Mentioned: p. 486-489; Reproduced: p. 487
Kasl, Ronda and Suzanne L. Stratton. Painting in Spain in the Age of Enlightenment: Goya and His Contemporaries. Indianapolis, IN: Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1997. Mentioned: p. 237-239; Reproduced: p. 106, 237-238
Salomon, Xavier F. "Goya and the Altamira Family." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 71, no. 4 (Spring 2014). p. 18; Reproduced: fig. 17
Gade, Regina. "De mi invención"?: Francisco de Goya im Dienst der spanischen Monarchie von 1775 bis 1792. München: Herbert Utz Verlag, 2015. Reproduced: p. 845, fig. 5.25
Exhibition history

Paris, Musée Jacquemart André, 1961/62: "Goya"cat. no. 21.

Golden Anniversary of Acquisitions. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (September 10-October 16, 1966).

Painting in Spain in the Age of Enlightenment: Goya and His Contemporaries. Indianapolis Museum of Art (organizer) (November 23, 1996-January 19, 1997).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1966.14