Calle Luis Paret

Luis Paret y Alcázar was born in Madrid in 1746, son of a French father and a Spanish mother, and was the most refined painter of the Spanish Rococo, a contemporary of Goya. He entered the Academy of San Fernando young and passed into the service of the infante Don Luis de Borbón, the king’s brother. That closeness to the court gave him fame and also ruined him. Paret acted as a go-between in the love affairs of the infante, who was destined for the Church. When the matter came to light, Charles III banished him to Puerto Rico. There he painted himself as a barefoot peasant, dressed as a countryman, with a machete and a bunch of bananas, and sent that self-portrait to court to move the king to pity and win his return. He half succeeded: he was allowed back to Spain, but forbidden to come within forty leagues of Madrid, so he settled in Bilbao. Calle de Luis Paret recalls, in Delicias, the painter who portrayed his age and who, to come home, portrayed himself disguised as a farmhand.