Don José de Rozas y Meléndez de la Cueva, first Count of Castelblanco

Don José de Rozas y Meléndez de la Cueva, First Count of Castelblanco, dated 1716 and held at the Museo del Prado in Madrid, is a formal portrait of a Spanish nobleman and is among Oudry's most prestigious surviving figure paintings. The sitter was a Spanish diplomat or court figure present in Paris — an international mobility typical of early eighteenth-century aristocratic culture — and the commission for a formal portrait from a painter who would later specialize entirely in animals suggests that Oudry's early reputation was as a figure painter in the tradition of his master Largillière. The Prado's holding of this and the companion portrait of the Countess makes this one of the most important institutional documentation of Oudry's portraiture. The diplomatic or courtly context of the commission gave Oudry access to a prestigious foreign subject at a formative stage of his career.

Canvas with the full formal portrait format that Oudry learned from Largillière: three-quarter length or full-length figure, aristocratic setting implied through architectural and textile elements, costume rendered with the same material precision Oudry would later apply to animal subjects. The sitter's face receives the most sustained tonal and characterization work, while the elaborate costume — lace, silk, velvet, metal insignia — provides the material display expected of a formal aristocratic portrait.