(Fidenza 1712–1780 Naples)
Portrait of the young King Ferdinand IV of Naples (1751–1825) in a Cuirass and Decorated with the Order of the Golden Fleece, the Order of Saint Janarius, and the Order of Saint Esprit,
oil on canvas, 104 x 80 cm, carved and gilded Neapolitan Rococo frame

We are grateful to Professor Nicola Spinosa, Naples, who has endorsed the present painting as a characteristic work by Liani. We also thank Professor Steffi Röttgen, who has confirmed the attribution on the basis of a photograph.

When King Charles III left Naples in 1759 to head for Madrid, his court painter Anton Raphael Mengs accompanied the monarch to Spain. The artist’s position, which had therefore become vacant, was filled by Giuseppe Bonito and Francesco Liani. In the present picture, the new and still juvenile King Ferdinand IV has been portrayed by Liani as the embodiment of monarchy, for which the painter borrowed from the portraits of the French Bourbon kings, but also from Mengs’s painted likeness of the young sovereign from 1759. Liani was to remain the royal family’s favourite painter over a long period of time and portrayed its members on various occasions. King Ferdinand IV, who during the sixty-six years in which he ruled his country lived through a great deal of turbulence, was not uncontroversial as a sovereign. In 1768, he married the emperor’s daughter Marie Caroline, who was known for being much more energetic than her husband. She was in close contact with the English envoi Sir William Hamilton, the latter’s wife Emma, and Lord Nelson. The dimensions and the elaborate frame may suggest that the painting was originally in one of the royal residences.