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This portrait of a wisened man in a cloak by Francisco Domingo relates to a larger canvas of the same subject, dated to 1877 [fig. 1]. Whilst the portrait is of an intimate scale and is painted on board, it shows the man in bust length whereas the larger canvas shows the man’s full torso, adding the crossed hands below. The smaller scale of the work serves to emphasize the psychological intensity of the man’s gaze, the boldness of the brushwork around the facial features and the range of tone produced from a restricted colour palette of ochre, deep blue and green. The emphatic brush strokes, the choice of subject matter and the arresting nature of the man’s gaze demonstrate the enduring influence of Domingo's compatriot Diego Velázquez. Alongside Francisco Goya, with whom Domingo's works were occasionally confused, Velázquez and the artists of the Spanish Golden Age had a profound impact on Domingo which is most visible in early works such as this.

During the opening years of the 1870s Domingo lived in Madrid and produced a number of Realist portraits depicting lowlife, artisans and commonfolk, with examples such as the Prado’s The Old-Fashioned Cobbler [fig. 2], and the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes’ The Artist. In 1875 however Domingo moved to Paris where he was well received and took on many of the clients of the recently deceased Marià Fortuny. He established himself almost exclusively as a society portraitist operating within highly commercial circles, counting William Vanderbilt and numerous wealthy Americans amongst his clientele. The subject matter of Domingo’s Parisian portraiture typically reflected this elevation in financial and social status, although the present example demonstrates that Domingo did not wholly abandon costumbrismo and everyday subjects upon his arrival in France.

Domingo’s artistic training began in his native Valencia at the School of San Carlos, and continued at the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, where he won the Prix de Rome in 1867. His stay in Rome was brief and curtailed by malarial fever. He returned to Valencia to teach drawing, whilst he developed as a genre painter and portraitist, and in 1871 his picture, Saint Claire, won a gold medal at the Fine Art Biennale in Madrid, encouraging him to relocate to the city. In Madrid Domingo found work decorating the palaces of the Duke of Bailen and Portugalete Nüñez, whilst exploring Realist portraiture contemporaneously. Domingo’s relocation to fin-de-siecle Paris in 1875 proved a great success, and he only returned to Spain in the final years of his life. Back in Madrid he obtained official recognition at the Academy of Fine Arts and prior to his death in 1920 he was made the subject of a retrospective in his native Valencia.