Don García Aznar; conde de Aragón

Painted in 1857 — while Rosales was in Rome on his academic scholarship — and in the Museo del Prado, this canvas depicting Don García Aznar, Count of Aragón, is an early engagement with Spanish medieval history. Don García Aznar was a ninth-century figure from the early history of the Kingdom of Aragon, and depicting him places Rosales within the broad Romantic project of recovering and visualising the deep medieval past of the Spanish nation. Medieval Spanish history provided painters with a wealth of subjects that combined national pride with Romantic drama, and Rosales returned to this well throughout his career. The work's relatively early date — Rosales was twenty-four years old — suggests both the ambitious reach of his Roman scholarship period and the academic expectation that history painters demonstrate their command of historical subject matter early in their careers.

Early history painting at the academic level required Rosales to combine period costume reconstruction, figure painting, and historical narrative within a single composition. His handling at twenty-four shows the careful academic technique instilled by his Madrid training and refined through direct study in Rome, with particular attention to the medieval armour and costume through which historical credibility is established. The paint surface is tighter and more controlled than his later free manner.