TitlePhilip IV of Spain
Artist
August Reinhold Franzen
(American, 1863 - 1938)
Daten.d.
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 26 × 21 1/4 in.
Framed: 32 5/8 × 28 1/8 × 2 3/4 in.
SignedSigned on verso: "August Franzen/ after Velazquez/ Nat. Gall.12"
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY, Bequest of the artist, 1938
Object number1486-P
Label TextFranzén may have made this copy of Velázquez's seventeenth-century bust portrait of Philip IV (National Gallery, London) in 1903 while on a summer and autumn tour of the major museums in England and the Continent. He seems to have long seen Velázquez as an exemplary portraitist. Franzén identified his standards for portraiture in a 1907 newspaper interview: "The spirit craves something [besides accurate likeness]. The great portrait painters, at their best, express this deep human quality which comes from within the man or the woman represented. Take the cold, austere Philip IV by his friend Velázquez, done with such infinite insight and sympathy." In October 1922 Franzén donated a collection of photographic reproductions of paintings by Velázquez and several other Spanish artists to the Academy. His copy of the image that he so much admired-and retained throughout his life-was received by the Academy in the elaborate frame Franzén had provided for it. Presumably, the frame reflected his respect for the master more than it did Franzén's regard for his own reproduction.
