Vicente López y Portaña

Fernando Giner;

From whom acquired, 1995.

New York, Berry Hill Galleries, Visions and Vistas: Old Master Paintings and Drawings, 25 January - 4 March 2000, p. 42.

J.L. Díez, Vicente López (1772 – 1850): Catálogo Razonado, Madrid 1999, vol. II, p. 118, cat. no. P-467, reproduced pl. 102;

R. Simon, in Visions and Vistas: Old Master Paintings and Drawings, exhibition catalogue, New York 1999, p. 42, reproduced.

Vicente López y Portaña executed this portrait of Roman de Avilez around 1810, when working in Valencia and before his return to Madrid. Although painted prior to his appointment, alongside Francisco de Goya, in the court of Ferdinand VII, the work reflects Lopez’s close engagement with the early nineteenth-century Spanish aristocracy and the military elite. 

The sitter appears within a fictive stone oval that both frames him and underscores his status. Beneath, a parapet bears an extensive inscription that identifies Roman de Avilez as a former colonel of the Regiment of Lusitania Dragoons and his present position within the General Staff of Valencia. Although wearing the Regiment’s distinctive yellow uniform, the sitter’s pose–with slightly lowered chin, sloping eyebrows, and upturned mouth–presents him as an elder statesman, characterized by his restraint and calm rather than military prowess.