The Charles IV family
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| The Charles IV family |
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| Francisco de Goya , 1800-1801 |
| oil |
| 280 × 336 cm |
| Museo del Prado |
The family of Charles IV of the Spanish painter Francisco de Goya in the Spanish museum Museo del Prado is one of the most famous paintings in the world.
history
The king and his family had been in power for little more than a decade at the time the picture was painted (around 1800). When Goya painted the royal family, he was 54 years old and almost deaf.
In terms of art history, the painting is to be seen in connection with the work Las Meninas by Goya's famous predecessor Diego Velázquez . Like Vélazquez, Goya also portrays himself in the picture behind his easel as a subjective observer of the king's family at court.
A copy of the picture is in the stairwell of the royal summer palace La Granja .
description
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The portrait is dominated by Queen María Luisa de Parma (1751–1819) and King Charles IV (1748–1819) standing in the center . At the hands of the Queen, the Infanta Francisco de Paula (1794–1865) and the Infanta María Isabel (1789–1848).
On the left edge of the picture the Infante Carlos María de Isidro (1788–1855), who was second in line to the throne; next to it in blue brocade the future King Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias (1784–1833); the heir to the throne, who later opposed his parents and staged a coup in 1808. He became king and led a despotic regime. To the left, the Infanta Maria Josefa (1744–1801), a sister of the king, and the wife of the heir to the throne (looking backwards) Maria Antonia of Naples-Sicily (1784–1806).
To the right of the king is his brother, the Infante Antonio Pascual (1755–1817) and in the side profile the eldest daughter of the monarch, Carlota Joaquina (1775–1830), Queen of Portugal. On the right side finally the couple of princes of Parma, the Infanta María Luisa (1782-1824) with her son Carlos Luis (1799-1883) in the arm; next to her husband, Luis de Bourbon (1773-1803), the future king of Etruria.
The picture shows the family of the Spanish king in a pose that led a contemporary critic to say that the king and his wife looked " like a baker and his wife after winning the lottery ". However, there are indications that the portraits were very satisfied with their portraits. Nevertheless, the realism in the view of the court painter Goya suggests that the directness and unadorned sobriety - one can sometimes call it ugliness - as portrayed by the court staff, was not accidentally done. In this group portrait, Goya subtly visualized his distance from the ruling family.
A clear color scheme is recognizable: the women are dressed in gold, white and silver, while the men are dressed in black, blue and red.
literature
- Elke Linda Buchholz: Francisco de Goya. Könemann, Cologne 1999, ISBN 3-8290-2930-6 .
- Rose-Marie Hagen, Rainer Hagen: Francisco Goya 1746–1828. At the dawn of modernity. Taschen, Cologne 2012, ISBN 978-3-8365-3954-8 .
- Edward J. Olszewski: Exorcising Goya's "The Family of Charles IV". In: Artibus et Historiae , Vol. 20, No. 40 (1999), pp. 169-185 ( JSTOR 1483673 at jstor.org, PDF, 6.9 MB).
Web links
- The Charles IV family on the Prado website, Madrid (English, Spanish)
- Images of rulers at the Federal Agency for Civic Education
- Carlos IV de España con su familia at artehistoria.es (spanish)