ESCUELA MADRILEÑA, SEGUNDA MITAD DEL SIGLO XVIIRetrato de Carlos II sentado en un interior

Oil on canvas. 160 x 108 cm. With carved wood frame gilded and polychrome. On the back inscribed on the frame in ink: "V-14243" and "nº43", inscribed on the frame in ink: "V- 14243" and Macaroni label with number "14243". PROVENANCE: Private collection, Madrid. REFERENCE BIBLIOGRAPHY: Pascual Chenel, Álvaro, Painted documents from the reign of Carlos II, Archivo Histórico de la Nobleza, Quiroga: Revista de Patrimonio Iberoamericano,Nº. 22, 2023(Issue dedicated to: Andalusia-America: Cultural Heritage and Artistic Relations),pp.144-160. Pascual Chenel, Álvaro, Retórica del poder y persuasión política, los retratos dobles de Carlos II y Mariana de Austria, Goya: Revista de arte,2010 Nº 331,pp.124-145. The reign of Charles II implies a continuous transformation in various fields, including royal representation. New typologies of portraits of Charles II and Mariana of Austria appeared, influenced by the historical-political circumstances of the time, with the purpose of satisfying the new needs of representation that these circumstances demanded. The creation of these new typologies and iconographies of Charles II and Mariana of Austria was the responsibility of Juan Martínez del Mazo. Mazo established most of the iconographic and significant resources that would later be repeated and developed with small variations by successive chamber painters. Later, Sebastián Herrera Barnuevo continued with this work, and finally, Juan Carreño de Miranda deepened and consolidated a model of royal image, adding subtle symbolic elements. The work we present here, until now kept in a private collection in Madrid, is an interesting representation of Charles II that stands out for its innovative way of portraying the monarch. The image of Charles II was, without a doubt, the most widely represented and disseminated of all the Spanish Habsburgs. However, we have not found any other portrait on canvas in which the monarch is represented seated. With a sobriety and intimacy typical of the portraits of Spanish kings, the painter shows us the figure of King Charles II in adulthood, full-length, seated on a frieze. He wears the usual black clothes, which we can find in other portraits by Carreño de Miranda, adorned by the metallic gleams of the necklace of the Golden Fleece hanging from his neck. He holds a hat in his left hand, and a letter in his right hand. His face reflects the sadness of his maturity, an expression that can be found in other portraits of the period. To his left, a table with a rug, on which rests the scepter and the crown; attributes that belong to him by hereditary dynastic right and that reinforce and mark perfectly and explicitly his condition of king. A reddish curtain gathered to the left, enhances on a neutral background. Located on a tiled floor space that serves as a frame for the composition. So far, we have only located in two painted documents of the reign of Charles II in the publication of Álvaro Pascual Chenel, entitled Documentos pintados del reinado de Carlos II en el Archivo Histórico de la Nobleza, the representation of the seated monarch. One of them, attributed to Matías de Torres, corresponds to the Despacho del título de marqués de Monterrico, dated 1687, and the other, also by Matías de Torres, is the Despacho del título de marqués de Torrepacheco, dated approximately 1692. The portrait of the Infanta Sister Margarita de la Cruz, Archduchess of Austria, preserved in the Prado Museum, shows that Matías de Torres was also a painter who cultivated the portrait genre.