The broad outlines of Mengs's activities as court painter to Charles III of Spain are well known.' Summoned to Madrid in 1761, when he was at the zenith of his immense European fame, he remained - despite absences in Italy - in the Spanish royal service, producing portraits, history-paintings and frescoes as well as training a whole school of Neo-classical artists, up to his early death at Rome in 1779. Not the least important of his undertakings in Madrid was the decoration in fresco of a series of ceilings in the state rooms of the Palacio Real, which also came to house a considerable quantity of his oil-paintings. A hitherto unnoticed bozzetto and a sub- stantial unstudied manuscript now shed fresh light on his activities in the palace, on the way in which his works were regarded at court, and on several of his more important paintings.

Long known but never fully appraised,Jean-Louis Gintrac's somewhat inept drawing after Francisco Goya's La Boda has usually been dismissed as an awkward caricature by a minor artist.' It was reproduced lithographically under the title Un mariage burlesque (Fig. 17) for the new Parisian art journal L'Artiste in early December 1834,2 some six years after Goya's death at Bordeaux, this being the first occasion that a painting by the artist was illustrated in the press of any country.3 In addition to this distinction, the print provides useful clues for deciphering Goya's conception and composition of La Boda, which formed part of the 1791-92 series of cartoons painted for tapestries intended to decorate Charles IV's office at El Escorial, as well as allowing the much-doubted oil sketch (boceto) for this particular cartoon to be definitely identified.

The final months of Giambattista Tiepolo's lengthy career were dedicated to planning a set of frescoes for the collegiate church at the royal palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso, near Segovia, whose construction, some fifty years earlier, had exemplified the artistic ambitions of Philip V after securing his position on the Spanish throne at the end of the War of Succession. The church itself (Fig.24) was begun around 1721 to the designs of Teodoro de Ardemans and was dedicated to the Holy Trinity on 22nd December 1723. Philip V's request to Pope Innocent XIII for a bull elevating the foundation to the status of a royal Collegiate church was delayed by the pope's death and the slow election of a successor, but in 1725, Benedict XIII issued the bull 'Deum infafigabilem', making this the mother church of all the churches at San Ildefonso. Philip's attachment to it led him to choose it as his burial place.'

In April 1771, as a result of Tiepolo's death the previous month, Charles III of Spain asked Francisco Bayeu to decorate the octagonal cupola of the Collegiate Church of the Holy Trinity at La Granja de San Ildefonso. In 1918, most of Bayeu's work in the church was destroyed by fire, only the four Evangelists in the pendentives escaping complete destruction. No detailed description or visual record of the completed cupola has survived, and its appearance has been postulated on the evidence of textual references, an incomplete set of Bayeu's bozzetti, and some related drawings. The recent discovery of two previously unpublished bozzetti, and the consequent linking of both of a pair of drawings in the National Gallery of Scotland to the commission, now permit a more detailed interpretation of the cycle's Trinitarian theme.

In the early spring of 1623 the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Buckingham made an incognito journey to Spain to seek the hand of the Spanish Infanta as a bride for the future Charles I. Their arrival took the Spanish court by surprise; hasty preparations were made to entertain the English dignitaries during their five-month stay.' Informed of the pair's interest in the arts and particularly in collecting pictures, the court appointed a special junta to arrange visits to collections in and around Madrid, composed of members of the Council of State: Cardinal Zapata, the marques de Aytona, and the conde de Gondomar. Also present were Andres de Prada y Losada, as secretary to the prince and the junta, and the conde de Barajas as mayordomo. The conde de Monterrey, President of the Council of Italy, was appointed as special assistant to the Prince of Wales. According to Andres de Mendoza, a first-hand witness, Monterrey 'so rare and famous in understanding' was commanded to 'join with the Council of State to treat any matter that should come in question'.2 The choice of Monterrey as a guide and companion of the English connoisseurs was an appropriate one; in the next two decades he would become one of the leading artistic patrons in the reign of Philip IV." His counterpart as expert in the English delegation was Buckingham's painter-agent Baltasar Gerbier.4