the Count of Fernán Núnez

The Count of Fernán Núñez sat for Goya in 1803, at the intersection of two worlds poised for violent collision. Carlos José Gutiérrez de los Ríos was a diplomat, historian, and grandee who had served as Spanish ambassador in Paris during the Revolutionary years and had witnessed firsthand the upheaval that would soon consume the Bourbon order he served. Goya's equestrian format for the full-length version of this portrait drew deliberately on the tradition of Velázquez's royal equestrians in the Prado, claiming for the count a visual dignity equal to royalty. The 1803 date places this commission in the brief interval of relative calm between the catastrophes of the previous decade and the Napoleonic invasion of 1808. Goya was at this moment operating at the summit of his powers as a society portraitist, his reputation unassailable, his technique achieving the spontaneous bravura that would influence Manet and later the Impressionists.

Goya renders the nobleman with striking presence, using the formal stance and rich costume to establish aristocratic authority while the face is treated with his characteristically unsparing observation.