GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco de
(b. 1746, Fuendetodos, d. 1828, Bordeaux)

Portrait of the Poet Moratín

1824
Oil on canvas, 60 x 49,5 cm
Museo de Bellas Artes, Bilbao

Leandro Fernández de Moratín (1760-1828) was a Spanish dramatist and poet. A supporter of Joseph Bonaparte, he lived in exile in France after Bonaparte fell. Moliere, whose works he translated, was his literary model. His plays, satiric and psychologically acute, include El sí de las ninas [the maidens’ consent] (1806), for which he was denounced to the Inquisition. He was subsequently compelled to give up playwriting. He was a friend of Goya who painted his portrait twice, this one in Bilbao, and another in 1799 which is now in the Museo de la Real Academia de San Fernando, Madrid.




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