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拍品專文
Manuel Godoy y Alvarez de Faria (1767-1851) holds a controversial and somewhat notorious place in Spanish history. Cultured and intensely ambitious, he was married in 1797 to Maria Teresa de Borbn y Vallabriga, Countess of Chinchn. This tragic marriage was arranged by Maria Teresa's uncle, King Charles IV, and by her aunt, Queen Maria Luisa, Godoy's lover. His meteoric rise to power as the pre-eminent statesman of his age was largely due to his relationship with the Queen, but he was also admired by Charles IV, and by all accounts, he was brilliant and hard-working, earning the post of First Secretary of State by the age of twenty-five. Understandably, his fortunes were inextricably linked to those of the Crown, and following a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, his final political demise occurred in 1807. The following year, Charles IV was exiled to France with Maria Luisa, and gave up his crown in shame to Napoleon.
During the period of his absolute power, there was a steady demand for portraits of Godoy, not least from the vain politician himself. His friendship with Goya is well documented, and the latter created several likenesses of him, perhaps most famously in the large portrait of 1801, the year Godoy received the title of Prince of the Peace, following his defeat of the Portuguese forces in the so-called War of the Oranges. Goya's painting is a deeply incisive work which portrays the sitter in the midst of the battlefield, most likely at the suggestion of the sitter himself, in the guise of supreme chief of the Spanish armed forces. Shortly after the portrait was finished, on October 14th, Godoy received the title of Generalisimo. In this work, Goya makes no attempt to diguise his friend's imperious self-confidence.
Parallel to his ties with Goya, Godoy also appears to have had a close working relationship with Goya's friend and collaborator, Agustn Esteve. Esteve started his career in his native Valencia, part of a long-established artistic family. From 1770, when he first traveled to Madrid, he came under the influence of the two most significant painters of that time, Francisco Bayeu and Mariano Salvador Maella. His works from this period reflect the style of Anton Raphael Mengs, the dominant force in academic and court painting in Madrid. It was not until much later that Esteve came into contact with Goya, when they were both working on commissions from the powerful Osuna family. In 1800, he was named Pintor de Camara, no doubt with the aid of Goya, who was first painter to the King.
Soria (op. cit.) includes no fewer than nine autograph portraits of Godoy in his monograph on Esteve. The present composition, possibly the best among these, and one of the artist's most accomplished works, is known in two other versions: a smaller painting, also signed, in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, and another unsigned work in the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, in which the composition is cropped and the hands excluded (see Soria, op. cit., pp. 126-7, nos. 113 and 115). Soria dates the present painting to circa 1807 when Esteve was collaborating fully with Goya on both portrait commissions and on projects such as the decoration of the Convent de Las Salesas Nuevas in Madrid. Here Godoy is depicted with his right hand resting on a map of the New Indies placed beside one of the Straits of Gibraltar, a clear reference to his position as Almirante de Espaa y de las Indias, the Admiral of the Spanish Navy, both at home and in the Indies.
During the period of his absolute power, there was a steady demand for portraits of Godoy, not least from the vain politician himself. His friendship with Goya is well documented, and the latter created several likenesses of him, perhaps most famously in the large portrait of 1801, the year Godoy received the title of Prince of the Peace, following his defeat of the Portuguese forces in the so-called War of the Oranges. Goya's painting is a deeply incisive work which portrays the sitter in the midst of the battlefield, most likely at the suggestion of the sitter himself, in the guise of supreme chief of the Spanish armed forces. Shortly after the portrait was finished, on October 14th, Godoy received the title of Generalisimo. In this work, Goya makes no attempt to diguise his friend's imperious self-confidence.
Parallel to his ties with Goya, Godoy also appears to have had a close working relationship with Goya's friend and collaborator, Agustn Esteve. Esteve started his career in his native Valencia, part of a long-established artistic family. From 1770, when he first traveled to Madrid, he came under the influence of the two most significant painters of that time, Francisco Bayeu and Mariano Salvador Maella. His works from this period reflect the style of Anton Raphael Mengs, the dominant force in academic and court painting in Madrid. It was not until much later that Esteve came into contact with Goya, when they were both working on commissions from the powerful Osuna family. In 1800, he was named Pintor de Camara, no doubt with the aid of Goya, who was first painter to the King.
Soria (op. cit.) includes no fewer than nine autograph portraits of Godoy in his monograph on Esteve. The present composition, possibly the best among these, and one of the artist's most accomplished works, is known in two other versions: a smaller painting, also signed, in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, and another unsigned work in the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, in which the composition is cropped and the hands excluded (see Soria, op. cit., pp. 126-7, nos. 113 and 115). Soria dates the present painting to circa 1807 when Esteve was collaborating fully with Goya on both portrait commissions and on projects such as the decoration of the Convent de Las Salesas Nuevas in Madrid. Here Godoy is depicted with his right hand resting on a map of the New Indies placed beside one of the Straits of Gibraltar, a clear reference to his position as Almirante de Espaa y de las Indias, the Admiral of the Spanish Navy, both at home and in the Indies.