Portrait of Victor Guye

The sitter, only six or seven years old, wears the uniform of page to Joseph Bonaparte. He was the nephew of General Nicolas Guye, who was also portrayed by Goya in 1810 (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond). According to an inscription on the back of the canvas, the two portraits were painted as pendants. During the French occupation of Madrid - at the time when he was working on the drawings for the Desastres de la Guerra - Goya painted several portraits of Frenchmen and pro-French Spaniards. Little or nothing of his avowed hostility to the French invaders is revealed in these works, least of all in this sympathetic portrayal of a French child.