Portrait of the Poet Moratín

Leandro Fern�ndez de Morat�n (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 s� 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.