Workshop of Jacopo Amigoni

Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 7 November 1984, lot 39 (as Spanish School, 18th Century);

Where acquired by Stanley Moss.

This distinguished portrait depicts the Spanish statesman and reformer Zenón de Somodevilla y Bengoechea, 1st Marqués de la Ensenada (1702–1781), one of the most influential political figures of eighteenth-century Spain. Born in 1702, Ensenada rose rapidly through royal service and was granted his marquisate in 1736 following the conquest of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies for the Infante Don Carlos. Under Philip V and later Ferdinand VI, he held many of the highest offices of state, serving successively as Secretary of the Treasury, War, Navy, and the Indies, as well as Superintendent General of Revenues, Lieutenant General of the Admiralty, and State Councilor. A leading advocate of administrative and military reform and a supporter of closer ties with France, Ensenada became the dominant minister of Ferdinand VI’s reign before falling from power in 1754; he died in exile in 1781. There also exists a larger, half-length portrait of the Marqués painted by Amigoni circa 1750 at the Museo del Prado, Madrid (inv. no. P002939).