Landing of Ferdinand VII in El Puerto de Santa María

During the Liberal Trienium (1820-1823), Ferdinand VII again swore allegiance to the Constitution of Cadiz. Subsequently, he was reinstated to the throne after having received assistance from The Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis, a French army that invaded Spain and forced the surrender of the few places where the Liberals were holding out. Then started the so-called Ominous Decade that lasted until the death of the monarch in 1833. / The painting represents the royal barge —with the august family and the King in the centre of the composition, who offers his hand to his liberator— received, upon its arrival in the port of Santa María, by members of the ecclesiastic chapter and representatives of the City Council, amidst the clamour of the citizens of Cadiz, and under the attentive gaze of the French troops. / José Aparicio was a Court painter that could be considered as the ‘official’ creator of the images that eternalise and praise the historical and institutional events of Ferdinand VII’s reign. In particular, this painting is a replica on a smaller scale of an historic and ambitious canvas reproducing this event that was destroyed in the fire of 1915 in the convent Las Salesas Reales.