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Goya and the Altamira Family – Metropolitan Museum

Goya - Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga

Francisco de Goya
Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Goya and the Altamira Family – Metropolitan Museum By special arrangement with the Banco de España, the Metropolitan Museum reunites for the first time four portraits painted by Francisco de Goya that were commissioned by the Count of Altamira, who was a director of the bank. April 22 – August 3 2014.]]>

Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

“Goya and the Altamira Family” consists of Banco de España’s portrait of the Count of Altamira; the Metropolitan’s beloved “Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga”, the so-called “Red Boy;” the beautiful portrait of Manuel’s mother and sister, Condesa de Altamira and Her Daughter, María Agustina, from the Metropolitan Museum’s Robert Lehman Collection; and a portrait of Manuel Osorio’s brother Vicente Joaquin de Toledo, from a private collection. All four portraits were painted between 1786 and 1788 when Goya was beginning to experiment with aristocratic portraiture. A fifth portrait depicting Count Altamira’s middle son, Juan María Osorio, was painted around the same time by Agustín Esteve, one of Goya’s pupils, and is lent by the Cleveland Museum of Art.

The Banco de San Carlos (the present-day Banco de España) commissioned Goya to create a series of portraits of the directors of the bank in Madrid, including the full-length depiction of Vicente Joaquín Osorio Moscoso y Guzmán, Count of Altamira. It was the success of this portrait that led to the subsequent commission to Goya for three portraits of members of the count’s family.

The exhibition is accompanied by a Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin written by Xavier F. Salomon. Based on new research, it examines Goya’s relationship with the Altamira family and chart the history of the paintings. It will be published in conjunction with the opening of the exhibition.

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Goya and the Altamira Family - Metropolitan Museum