Equestrian Portrait of Don Juan José of Austria

José Ximénez Donoso

about 1660–1680

Brown ink and brown wash over black chalk, heightened with white gouache, squared in black chalk (recto); Black chalk (verso), Ink, Wash, Chalk

J. Paul Getty Museum

An equestrian portrait sketch depicts a man in ornate attire on horseback, surrounded by figures and architectural elements. The drawing is squared for transfer. A highly successful and ruthless general, Don Juan José of Austria suppressed an anti-Spanish uprising in Naples when he was only eighteen years old. This scene shows his triumphal entry following the suppression of the revolt. A young fisherman had led a protest against a new tax on fruit imposed by the aristocracy; the protest later turned into an insurrection aiming at slaughtering the nobility. As the general leads his cavalry into the city, trampling a child underfoot, he receives the homage of the population in the person of the bearded man kneeling to the left, who offers a platter containing three utensils, perhaps represent