Portrait of King Alfonso XIII in a Hussar's Uniform

Painted in 1917 and held by Patrimonio Nacional — the Spanish royal patrimony — this official portrait depicts Alfonso XIII in the spectacular dress uniform of a Spanish Hussar regiment, a military costume of Hungarian origin that remained the most visually magnificent element of European military dress through the nineteenth and into the twentieth century. By 1917, the Great War was at its height, and Spain's official neutrality had not insulated Alfonso's court from the political tensions generated by the conflict. A portrait in military uniform reinforced the king's authority and his identification with Spain's armed forces at a delicate diplomatic moment. Sorolla had painted Alfonso before — in the 1908 canvas now in Córdoba — but this later portrait shows a monarch twelve years older, more settled in authority, and now depicted in the most ceremonial possible register. The Hussar uniform's richly decorated pelisse, braided jacket, and dramatic colouring gave Sorolla precisely the kind of chromatic and textural richness that suited his mature painterly language.

The Hussar uniform's elaborate decorative details — gold and silver braid, fur edging, brilliant colours — presented Sorolla with an unusually rich chromatic and textural subject for official portraiture. His handling transformed the complex millinery of the uniform into pure paint sensation without sacrificing legibility.