Portrait of a Man

The famous Sevillian master of Romantic painting, Antonio María Esquivel y Suárez de Urbina (1806-1857), produced ‘Portrait of a Man’ (Retrato de caballero), a 19th-century Spanish Romantic painting. This painting is of the elegant and reserved style preferred by the bourgeois aristocracy of Isabelline Spain (España Isabelina). The painting depicts a man in a contemplative pose, gazing into a dark and atmospheric scene, with a serious facial expression. The clothes fit his body: a dark coat, a white shirt, and a cravat are all a reflection of the sartorial expression of the Romantic man. The sumptuous light is softly cast, highlighting the sitter’s face and obscuring his features, high brow, and contemplative expression. Esquivel’s ability to achieve linear accuracy and his smooth, sleek brushwork are achieved through his formal training in both Seville and Madrid, while his surface tactileity in the dark cloths and light skin tones suggests a hint of the tactile. Antonio María Esquivel was a major contributor to art during the 19th-century in Spain, as he was a founding member of Liceo Artístico y Literario of Madrid, and court painter to Queen Isabella II. Esquivel studied light and shade and warm, rich colours from the use of the Sevillian masters of the 17th century, such as Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, and in the 19th century, with the Romantic movement in Europe. Portrait of a Man is a fine study in the sensationalistic talents of Esquivel at melding the academic and the emotional. This portrait was produced at the height of his career, but also during a difficult period around the late 1830s (he was virtually blind), and illustrates his maturity as one of the most important Romantic portrait artists of Spain, together with Federico de Madrazo.