Another Entry in the "You Can Find Heraldry Everywhere" Collection

So there I was, just minding my own business, attending an exhibit of a Spanish painter I had not heard of before at the Meadows Museum on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, in the company of a friend and her mother. We were having a good time, seeing a lot of the paintings of Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta (1841-1920), admiring his technique and subject matter.

Madrazo was clearly a very accomplished painter, reminding very much of earlier Spanish painters with whom I am famililar, Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Goya. Indeed, Madrazo's treatment of lace in one of his portraits called to mind Goya's very similar treatment of lace in his portrait the Señor Sabasa Garcia (one of my most favorite paintings, and one which I am grateful to have had the opportunity to see in person at the National Gallery in Washington, DC. Am I gushing? I think I am gushing. Okay, back to the topic at hand).

So, anyway, in one of the rooms was another portrait, painted in 1902 (a posthumous portrait, the sitter having died in 1901), of Carlos María Fitz-James Stuart y Palafox, 16th Duke of Alba, 9th Duke of Berwick (1849-1901). (Fortunately for you and me, the Meadows Museum allowed photographs, so I am able to share this with you.)

The 16th Duke has his own entry on Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Mar%C3%ADa_Fitz-James_Stuart,_16th_Duke_of_Alba. This page also has a couple of photographs of him, one taken at age 11 and another ten years later at 21. He has an interesting background, and I encourage you to visit that page to learn more about the man himself.

But, of course, almost immediately upon seeing this painting, I noticed -- as many of you probably already have -- a coat of arms in the upper left-hand corner.

As an aside, I immediately thought of an old quote by John E. Cussans in his The Handbook of Heraldry, where he says:

Many are the incidents but faintly written in the pages of history, which would have forever remained dark and illegible, but for the light flashed on them by the torch of Heraldry. A shield of Arms, a Badge, or a Rebus depicted on a glass window, painted on a wall, carved on a corbel or monument, will frequently indicate, with unerring precision, the date to which such relics are ascribed, and whose memory they are intended to perpetuate, when all verbal descriptions are wanting; and the identity of many an old portrait rests on no other authority than that of a coat of arms painted at the side.

Admittedly, here at the Meadows Museum, there was also a sign next to the painting identifying both the painter and the subject, but still ....

Anyway, here's a close-up of those arms:

Three of the four quarters of these arms should be pretty familiar to you: 1, England; 2, Scotland; and 3, Ireland. The fourth quarter is the arms of the Dukes of Alba of the House of Álvarez de Toledo, the predecessors of the de Silva and Fitz-James Stuart Dukes of Alba, respectively.

The whole shield is set with a border of alternating England (in this case, Gules a lion passant or) and France (here, Azure a fleur-de-lys or). The coronet above the shield is that of a Spanish duke, and the crest is An angel garbed in the arms of the Duke of Alba and maintaining a sword in its dexter hand and an orb in its sinister hand, all proper.

Anyway, I thought that I was just going to spend a little pleasant time looking at the paintings of a Spanish artist of whom I had no prior knowledge. And I came away with the confirmation that, once again, "You can find heraldry everywhere!"