Portrait of Infante Don Luis de Borbon
1776
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
About the artist
Artist
Anton Raphael Mengs
Anton Raphael Mengs was a German Neoclassical painter.
See the richer artist page1776
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Portrait of Infante Don Luis de Borbon is a 1776 unspecified by Anton Raphael Mengs, a Rococo painting work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
This painting shows a young man in a fancy coat covered in shiny medals. His face looks calm. The coat’s bright red and gold threads pop against the dark background. Mengs used soft light to make the medals and fabric look real. The boy’s hair is powdered white. The artist liked to mix old styles with new ideas. Check out this artist’s other work at The 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.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Anton Raphael Mengs was a German Neoclassical painter.
See the richer artist page
