Agustín Esteve y Marques

Private collection, Madrid;

R. G. Behrens, Madrid;

His sale ("The Property of R. G. Behrens"), Christie's, London, 7 May 1909, lot 107 (as F. Goya);

Where purchased by "Shepherd" for 84 gns.;

Frederick C. Hewitt, Owego and WM. Francklyn, Paris;

By whose descendants sold ("Sale for Account of the Heirs of the Late Frederick C. Hewitt and WM. Francklyn"), New York, American Art Association, 11 March 1910, lot 208 (as Francisco Goya y Lucientes);

Where purchased by George A. Hearn for $200;

His estate sale ("The Notable Art Collection formed by the late George A. Hearn; Merchant. Art Patron and Benefactor"), New York, American Art Galleries, 1 March 1918, lot 411 (as Goya);

Mrs. Dwight F. Davis, New York, by 1941;

By whom sold ("Property of Mrs. Dwight F. Davis"), New York, Sotheby's, 20 March 1941, lot 55 (as Goya);

Major Edward J. Bowes, until 1946;

His estate sale ("The Major Edward J. Bowes Collection"), New York, Kende Galleries, 1 November 1946, lot 42 (as Goya);

Anonymous sale, Cleveland, Wolf's, 31 October 1997, lot 1036 (as Manner of Goya);

Thereafter acquired by Stanley Moss.

Boston, Copley Square, Spanish Masters, 1912, no. 59 (lent by Mr. George A. Hearn, New York).

A. de Bervete y Moret, Goya as a Portrait Painter, London 1922, pp. 35, 206, cat. no. 92, (as Goya);

A.L. Mayer, Francisco de Goya, Munich 1923, p. 191, cat. no. 255 (as Goya);

M.S. Soria, "Agustin Esteve & Goya," in Art Bulletin 25, no. 3 (September 1943), p. 262, cat. no. 50 (as Esteve);

M.S. Soria, Agustín Esteve y Goya, Valencia 1957, pp. 113-114, cat. no. 77 (as Esteve).

Painted around 1802, this portrait of Juan Manuel Álvarez de Faria y Sánchez y Zarzosa, maternal uncle of Manuel Godoy (Príncipe de la Paz) and a prominent figure at the court of Carlos IV, belongs to the mature phase of Agustín Esteve y Marqués, Goya’s favored pupil and one of his closest contemporaries in portraiture. Recorded in early twentieth-century exhibitions as a work by Goya and later sold under that name, the painting exemplifies the corpus of misattributions that Martin S. Soria restored to Esteve. 

In his 1943 article “Agustin Esteve & Goya,” (see M.S. Soria, "Agustin Esteve & Goya," in Art Bulletin 25, no. 3 (September 1943), p. 262, cat. no. 50) Soria correctly reassigned the present work to Esteve after identifying the distinctive inscription in the artist’s own hand, which records the sitter’s date of death, confirming the portrait as a posthumous commission, and lists his titles: Knight of the Golden Fleece, Commander of Hornachos in the Order of Santiago, Perpetual Alderman of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Lieutenant General of the Royal Armies, and Councillor of State to His Majesty. 

These honors are visualized not only through the inscription itself, but also through the sitter’s posture and the refined elegance and authority Esteve conveys in his modeling of the figure. The portrait’s sober dignity and stately treatment balance the individuality of the sitter with the stylistic vocabulary associated with Goya and the Bourbon court.