The Huntington Acquires Historic Portrait by Renowned Spanish Painter Goya

SAN MARINO, Calif.—The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens announced today that it has acquired a historic portrait by Spanish master Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (“Goya”) (1746–1828). Portrait of José Antonio Caballero, Second Marqués de Caballero, Secretary of Grace and Justice was painted in 1807, a time when Goya was renowned for his portraits of the Spanish nobility and just before the Napoleonic invasion of Spain profoundly altered the nature of his later work. While The Huntington holds a number of Goya’s etchings and aquatints, Portrait of José Antonio Caballero is the first Spanish oil painting to join The Huntington’s art collection and will complement its extensive holdings of Library materials on Spanish imperial history. The painting—which will go on view in the Huntington Art Gallery on Nov. 29, 2023—is The Huntington’s third masterpiece acquired through a gift from The Ahmanson Foundation.

“Once again, The Ahmanson Foundation has proven to be an invaluable strategic partner, helping us reach our goals of broadening our collections with significant works and inviting new, interdisciplinary connections,” Huntington President Karen R. Lawrence said. “We couldn’t be more grateful to them for making possible the acquisition of such a superb and historically significant masterpiece.”

Considered one of the last Old Masters and one of the first and most influential great modern painters, Goya was celebrated during his lifetime for his ability to capture his subjects’ innermost personalities as well as their grandeur and political power—albeit with what has been perceived as an occasional layer of satire. He is also acclaimed for his virtuosic painterly style; flickering, impressionistic brushwork; and, in his later years, revolutionary subject matter.

Trained in Madrid and inspired by travels in Rome, Goya became a Spanish court painter in 1786, and he soon became known for such royal and aristocratic portraits as Portrait of José Antonio Caballero. But after the 1808 French invasion of Spain that began the Napoleonic Wars, Goya turned his artistic attention to portraying the horrors of war in paintings and prints.

“Portrait of José Antonio Caballero is historically fascinating and a prime example of Goya’s genius as a portraitist,” said Christina Nielsen, the Hannah and Russel Kully Director of the Art Museum at The Huntington. “Along with the exquisite French portrait by Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun acquired with The Ahmanson Foundation last year, it will add an important international perspective to our outstanding collection of 17th- and early 18th-century British portraits.”

The Ahmanson Foundation funded The Huntington’s (ca. 1784) by Vigée Le Brun (1755–1842), the most important female artist of 18th-century France, in 2022, and the (ca. 1839) by Anglo American painter Thomas Cole (1801–1848) in 2021.