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When
the Bourbon monarchy came to Madrid, none of the painters who served the new
court in the years immediately following met the expectations of their new patrons.
The Bourbons even wrote to the French monarchy to apologise that no
portraits had been sent because they were all so bad. This letter was also an
attempt to persuade the French Monarchy to find a
French painter willing to work at the Spanish court. That post was
filled a decade later, when the French portraitist Jean Ranc (1674-1735)
arrived in Madrid.
Ranc had
achieved recognition in Paris as an academician and also as a portraitist of
the aristocracy. He continued his role as a portraitist in Madrid, and also spent a
year from 1729 to 1730 in Lisbon, painting portraits of the Portuguese monarchy
for his Spanish patrons. Jean Ranc's work was the introduction of a new iconography
for the Bourbon monarchy. This can easily be seen if you compare Carrenos's
portrait of Carlos II with Ranc's portrait of the future Carlos III, not only in the
pose of the sitter but also in the inclusion of more overtly luxurious trappings
of the new age: a vase of flowers sits on a gilt table that is draped with
lavender velvet. After Ranc's death in 1735, word was immediately sent to Paris to
find another portraitist to serve at the Spanish court.
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