Att. to VICENTE ESCOBAR y DE FLORES

(Cuban, 1757-1834)

Portrait of Francisco de Paula Navia y Velásquez as a Child 

Dated 1789

Oil on canvas

39-1/2 x 31 inches (100.3 x 78.7 cm); framed size 49 x 39 ¼ inches

The subject of this painting is depicted at the age of 2 years. He was the son of María del Carmen Velásquez y Alarcón and the well-known Victorio de Navia Osorio, head of the Royal Corps of Spanish Guards.  

General Victorio Navia Osorio commanded an expeditionary force of nearly 10,000 men from Cádiz to Havana on April 28, 1780 to reinforce Spain’s military presence in the Caribbean after Spain’s declaration of war against the British.

Not long after that, Cuban painter Vicente Escobar y Flores went to Spain to study at Madrid's Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, and traveled within Spain and elsewhere in Europe for several more years. He painted little Francisco de Paula Navia y Velásquez dressed as a ‘cadet’.

Escobar later returned to Cuba where he set up his own studio in 1820.  In 1827 he was named a royal painter to the Spanish court of Fernando VII and Queen María Cristina.

He died of cholera in Havana in 1834.