Agustín Esteve Circle

Circle of AGUSTÍN ESTEVE MARQUÉS (Valencia, 1753 - 1820).
"Portrait of a lady", c. 1810.
Oil on canvas. Preserves original canvas.
Measurements: 110 x 78 cm; 119 x 87 cm (frame).
In this painting of clearly romantic aesthetics, an adult woman is represented emerging with solemnity from a black background, whose darkness reinforces both the concentration of the figure and the symbolic load of the gesture that stars in the scene. Dressed in an intense yellow suit, whose fabric seems to delicately capture the light, the female figure is placed in the center of the composition. The main gesture that structures the image is that of her hand, which points and at the same time holds a pendant necklace. In the locket or medallion hanging from the necklace is revealed, with miniaturist precision, the portrait of a child, probably a deceased son.
Stylistically, the work is reminiscent of the paintings of Agustín Esteve, who stood out mainly for the innumerable portraits he painted of Court nobles and high court bureaucrats. Under the protection of Godoy and the Osuna and Alba families, the painter developed a successful career at court until 1808. As in the case of other artists of his generation, the French invasion of 1808 and the convulsive period that lasted until 1814, together with the appearance of new painters and the natural decline of his age, caused his star to be eclipsed by minor commissions after the restoration of Ferdinand in 1814, and even, at the end of his life, to experience financial difficulties. Born into a family of artists, Agustín Esteve received his first lessons from his father, the sculptor Antonio Esteve. He then entered the Academy of Fine Arts of San Carlos in Valencia, and from there he went to the Academy of San Fernando in Madrid, where in 1773 he was awarded for the first time, with a third class prize in the annual competition of the Academy. After completing this final stage of his training, in which the influence of Mengs' teaching can be observed, Esteve became Francisco de Goya's assistant, something that would profoundly mark the Valencian artist's work from then on. The activity at Goya's side must have been intense since 1780, since after the death of Carlos III the new king commissioned numerous portraits to the Aragonese for different institutions, many of which were made directly by Esteve based on Goya's originals. During these years the painter would begin his good relations with the court, becoming the official portraitist first of the house of Osuna, and finally the main portraitist of the court at the end of the 18th century. Thus, Goya's patronage and Esteve's intense portraitist activity were finally rewarded when he was appointed Pintor de Cámara in 1800. With the entry of the French into Madrid and the accession of Joseph I to the throne, Agustín Esteve faced the same dilemma as the rest of the Pintores de Cámara regarding his loyalty to the new sovereign. Esteve, like the rest, placed himself under the orders of the new king and received his salaries as a painter of the Chamber. In spite of this, on the return of Ferdinand VII he had no problems to rejoin the service of his former master, since he was not in favor of Napoleon's brother. However, by 1814, at the age of sixty-one, Agustín Esteve's physical decrepitude was evident, his best days were over. And even more so considering that Goya's exile and the rise of Vicente López would corner him among the Chamber painters, although he continued to carry out some important commissions.