Philip IV in Brown and Silver

It was almost certainly the painting on display in the library at the Escorial outside Madrid from the mid-17th century until 1809, when it was removed on the orders of Joseph Bonaparte, who had been placed on the throne of Spain by his brother Napoleon. He presented it to a General Desolle, despite a civil servant asking him to present a less important work. Desolle's daughter sold it after the general's death to the English collector William Thomas Beckford, on whose death in 1844 it was inherited by his son-in-law, the 10th Duke of Hamilton. It was bought by the National Gallery for £6,300 at the 1882 Hamilton Palace Sale, a very high price for a Spanish painting at the time. ==Cleaning controversy==

Kenneth Clark, the director of the National Gallery at the time, oversaw a cleaning and restoration of the Silver Philip in 1936, which created significant controversy. Clark employed art restorer Helmut Ruhemann, whose work Clark described as "far more skillful and scientific [than other restorers]", to carry out the cleaning. Clark's biographer, James Stourton, described the controversy of the "cleaning wars" at the time: :"Part of the problem was that Academicians thought that an artist should run the gallery (as indeed had usually been the case), rather than an art historian, and they actually enjoyed spats. The painting that aroused their feelings was the Velázquez portrait of Philip [IV], the so-called 'Silver Philip', that had just received the attentions of Ruhemann. The Daily Telegraph had been stirring up controversy by inviting well-known artists to voice their opinions on the subject. Critics included Alfred Munnings, William Nicholson, and Frank Brangwyn, who preferred to view the Old Masters through the golden glow of discoloured varnish, and even threatened the establishment of a Society for the Protection of Old Masters. A lot of ink was spilled on the matter of whether 'glazes' or varnish had been removed from the Velázquez. Clark defended the gallery in the letters page of The Times and Sir William Rothenstein wrote an express approval of 'the Silver Philip'...The matter rumbled on for over a year. ==See also==