1819
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
Portrait of Don Juan Antonio Cuervo is a 1819 unspecified by Francisco Goya, a Romanticism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
A man in a fancy red-and-gold jacket holds a rolled-up paper. Behind him, a dark background makes his face stand out. This isn’t just any portrait. The paper shows his design for a Madrid church, proving he was both an artist and an architect. Goya painted him as a friend, not just a powerful figure. The jacket’s shiny threads mark him as part of Spain’s top art academy. If you like how Goya paints people with personality, look up *chiaroscuro*—the way light and shadow shape a face.
This portrait both testifies to Goya’s friendship with Cuervo and presents the sitter as a cutting-edge intellectual. Director of the Royal Academy of San Fernando, the official academy for artists and architects in Spain, Cuervo appears with his plan for the recent renovation of Madrid’s Church of Santiago. The jacket with red and gold brocade identifies him as a member of the academy.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; Spanish: ; 30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker.
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