Goya was the leading portraitist at the court of Carlos IV of Spain. Portraits such as this were thought remarkable by Goya's contemporaries, not only for their accurate likenesses, but for their compelling illusion of life itself. Félix Colón, a descendant of Christopher Columbus, was an officer of the Royal Infantry Guards and the author of a treatise on military justice. Here he holds a quill pen to indicate his authorship of the volumes behind him. He wears the badge of a Knight Commander of the Order of Santiago, which he entered in 1794, the year this portrait was painted.

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