A cleaning performed in 1949, in São Paulo, disclosed the existence of a monogram on the back of the armchair, very hard to detect today due to the similarity of the chestnut hues of the letters and the color of the back of the chair. The son of Charles IV, Ferdinand VII was born in La Granja on October 14, 1784 and died in Madrid on September 23, 1833. In this portrait he dons the attire of the Order of the Golden Fleece awarded him in 1805 and in his right hand he holds the royal scepter, which he received after his father’s abdication in 1808. This is probably a sketch for an official portrait, although the chromatic impasto is compact and extremely refined, and the shades strikingly beautiful and elaborate. The similarities with the portrait preserved in the Tyssen-Bornemisza Collection, currently in Madrid, in which king Ferdinand VII is depicted equally young and thin, confirm, in terms of style, the dating of the work Portrait of Ferdinand VII on display at Masp: exactly between March 19, 1808, date of the abdication of Charles IV, triggered by the Aranjuez mutiny, and April 1o of that same year, when the young monarch leaves Madrid for Baiona, summoned by Napoleon. The other portraits of Ferdinand VII by Goya are those executed in the years of his restoration, after 1814, when he appears considerably older and heavier. The misgivings with regard to authorship expressed by Gassier and Wilson (1971) should definitely be ignored.

— Unknown authorship, 1998

---