Don José Moñino y Redondo, Conde de Floridablanca

In addition to executing portraits of prominent travelers in Rome, Pompeo Batoni often painted important ambassadors and diplomats to the Vatican. The Count of Floridablanca, a brilliant lawyer and author of texts on jurisprudence, served as King Charles III of Spain’s ambassador to the Holy See between 1772 and 1776. He probably posed for Batoni in the months before he was recalled to Charles’s court. Here, the dignified Floridablanca, who wears the Spanish Order of Isabella the Catholic, appears to have been momentarily interrupted from reading a letter.