Spanish school; late 19th century.
"Portrait of a Knight of the Order of Isabella the Catholic".
Oil on panel.
It conserves its period frame.
Measurements: 72 x 59 cm; 93 x 80 cm (frame).
Portrait of oval format, starring the bust of a man. In the 19th century, the panorama of the European portrait is varied and wide, with numerous influences and determined to a great extent by the taste of both the clientele and the painter himself. However, this century saw the birth of a new concept of portraiture that would evolve over the course of the century and unify all the national schools: the desire to capture the personality of the human being and his character, beyond his external reality and social rank, in his effigy. During the previous century, portraiture had become established among the upper classes and was no longer reserved solely for the court. For this reason, as the 17th and even more so in the 18th century, the formulas of the genre became more relaxed and moved away from the ostentatious and symbolic official representations typical of the Baroque apparatus. On the other hand, the 18th century reacted against the rigid etiquette of the previous century with a more human and individual conception of life, and this was reflected in all areas, from furniture, which became smaller and more comfortable, replacing the large gilded and carved pieces of furniture, to the portrait itself, which came to dispense, as we see here, with all symbolic or scenographic elements in order to depict the individual rather than the personage.