Portrait of a Gentleman

Portrait of an unknown gentleman. In view of its production, devoid of the cold precision of his later works (for example, the Self Portrait of 1847, now housed in the Lázaro Galdiano Museum in Madrid), and also in light of the hairstyle, with traces of a measured Romanticism, this painting must undoubtedly date from before the artist’s temporary blindness. It is possibly one of the many commissioned portraits that, according to Osorio, he painted in order to ensure his subsistence in Madrid in the eighteen-thirties. The individual, well-off and placid, but with a tendency to whimsical elegance or fantasy that can be appreciated from his embroidered waistcoat and the brooch on his shirt, presents a picture of the typical moderate during the period of the Regency of María Cristina de Borbón-Sicilia.