Francisco Goya, Charles IV of Spain and His Family, 1800, oil on canvas, 9’17” x 11’, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
King Charles IV did not reject Francisco Goya’s less than flattering group portrait, Charles IV of Spain and His Family, but we know he didn’t like it much. This is not a surprise.
One easily could argue that Goya made this powerful monarch and his family appear pompous and stupid. It was apparent to his contemporaries; the French artist Théophile Gautier described these figures as looking like “the corner baker and his wife after they won the lottery.”
Goya’s style was at once idealized and naturalistic, and one can see both impulses in this painting. On the one hand, the Goya presents the family in their finest, with glittering clothing, jewelry, and medals. On the other hand, the gathering is relatively informal and natural. Some figures (including the king) are unattractive and have vacant facial expressions as they look around the room in different directions.
Goya, the Spanish court painter, modeled this image on Velázquez’s portrait of the daughter of the Spanish King Philip IV, Las Meninas. Goya is to left at his easel in his painting, just as Velázquez is in his portrait. Also, Charles IV’s wife, Maria Luisa, stands in the center with the same posture as Princess Margarita in Velázquez’s painting, thus appearing childlike.
