Cleveland Museum of Art

Portrait of Infante Don Luis de Borbon

Anton Raphael Mengs

Date

c. 1776

Medium

oil on canvas

Culture

Germany, 18th century

Department

European Painting and Sculpture

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

As a younger child of King Philip V of Spain, Don Luis received important religious posts, including Archbishop of Toledo and Seville. However, his philandering led to losing these titles and banishment from the court, while he became a crucial avant-garde art patron, especially of Goya. The encrustations of medals and cacophonous fabrics speak to Mengs's experiments in representing status, privilege, and royal honors in the age of Enlightenment, when rational skepticism began to confront absolutist, hereditary power.

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