AGUSTIN ESTEVE Y MARQUÉS

The artistic path of Agustín Esteve y Marqués (Valencia, 12.5.1753-Valencia, c.1820) is marked by the great personage of Goya and by his job as quasi-official portrayer of the Spanish nobility during the reign of Carlos IV. The trace that Goya left on his professional work is undeniable. He was his collaborator from 1780 until the War of the Independence, which separated them definitively. Neither his success among the enlightened elite is disputable. Above all Agustín Esteve was distinguished due to his innumerable portraits of nobles of the Court and of high Court officials. Under the protection of Godoy and of the families Osuna y Alba, Agustín Esteve was making a successful career in the Court until 1808. This work brought him recognition and large sums of money. As it happened with other painters of his generation, the French invasion in 1808 and the agitated period that lasted until 1814, along with the advent of new painters and his natural decline caused by aging, provoked the eclipse of his star. He was working on the minor orders from the time of the restoration of Ferdinand in 1814 and at the end of his life he even had economic hardships.

Agustín Esteve y Marqués was born in Valencia on May 12, 1753. He was a son of Antonio Esteve, a sculptor from Valencia, who inculcated in him the love for arts. Descending from the family of the Valencian artists, he attends his first classes of painting in the Academy of Fine Arts of San Carlos in Valencia. From there he went to Madrid to

continue his studies in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, where, in 1772, he won a prize of third class (drawing) in the annual contest. The information about Agustín Esteve in the Academy of Madrid is not very abundant, though everything seems to indicate that he was not one of the most outstanding students. In 1778 he attempted for the first prize of the first class of painting in this institution, with a painting representing Aníbal crossing the Alps, and took the last place, with only one vote.

After his studies in San Fernando's Academy, where Mengs's teaching influenced Esteve, he became an assistant of Goya, as observed from the great influence that the Aragonese painter had on Esteve's art from this date. His work beside Goya was intense since 1780, as demonstrate numerous portraits for different institutions, ordered to Goya by the new king upon the death of Carlos III, that were realized by Esteve himself, based on the originals of Goya.

Work with Goya did not prevent Agustín Esteve from engaging in other artistic activities. Good relations with the ruling groups of the Court provided him with numerous clients. Above all, he was an official portrayer of the Osuna's family, and had relations with the Alba family. Thus, he became the principal portrayer of the Court at the end of the XVIII century. The enumeration of the portrayed people would turn out to be tiring, but among them we find the elite of the society of Madrid: Godoy, the dukes of Osuna, marquise of San Andrés, the General Ricardos, the cardinal Lorenzana, Campomanes, Ramón de Pignatelli, marquis of Ariza, etc.

The sponsorship of Goya and the intense portraiture of Esteve had finally his recompense on being named, on June 14, 1800, Pintor de Cámara. He had a salary of 6.000 picayunes a year, the lowest salary among the Pintores de Cámara. The exiguous of salary has been explained maybe because Agustín Esteve was single. However, everything seems to indicate that it was motivated by his scanty antiquity in the post, the great number of Pintores de Cámara that existed in this moment and the high salaries of Maella and Goya.

With the entry in Madrid of the Frenchmen and the raise to the throne of Jose I, the same dilemma, that to the rest of the Pintores de Cámara, appeared to Agustín Esteve on the loyalty to the new sovereign. Esteve, as the rest, put under the orders of the new king and received his salaries as such Pintor de Cámara. In spite of it, in return of Fernando VII he did not have any problems to rejoin to the service of his former master due to not have been in favor of the brother of Napoleon.

However, around 1814 when he was 61, Agustín Esteve's physical decrepitude was evident. His best times had already passed. Moreover, the exile of Goya and the ascent of Vicente López isolated among the Pintores de Cámara. However, he painted two equestrian portraits of Fernando VII and of his brother the Prince Don Carlos in 1815. He collaborated in the official portraits of the double wedding of Fernando VII and Don Carlos with the Portuguese princesses Isabel and Maria Francisca de Asis de Braganza, respectively.

 But these were his last artistic works. From this date Esteve stops working. In 1819, he demanded his retirement that was accepted by the king on January 13, 1820. Retired in Valencia he dies soon after among the general nonchalance.