Prince Alois Wenzel von Kaunitz-Rietberg (El príncipe Alois Wenzel von Kaunitz-Rietberg)

This portrait, which may or may not be by Goya, was rediscovered in 1989 in a private collection. After examining the work, Manuela Mena decided that it was an autograph work and decided to include it in the exhibition Goya in Times of War. An old gallery attribution also connected it to Goya. Other specialists, such as Nigel Glendinnig and Jesusa Vega, have been reluctant to back this attribution, whilst Juliet Wilson is of the same opinion as Mena, adding however that the painting is not in a good state of preservation.

On 27 May 1815, Spain's ambassador in Vienna, Camilo Gutiérrez de los Ríos, wrote to the Spanish Secretary of State, Pedro de Cevallos, that Prince Metternich, married to the cousin of Kaunitz-Rietberg, wished to name Alois Wenzel ambassador to Spain, recalling that his grandfather and his uncle had held the post during the reign of Charles III. The position had remained empty following the Spanish War of Independence and the new Austrian ambassador, Kaunitz, arrived in Madrid in August 1815. His work as ambassador did not last long, however, with the Duke of San Carlos, the Spanish ambassador in Vienna, reporting the reprehensible behaviour of the Austrian. He left office in December 1816 and left the country in January 1817. Goya, as Court Painter, would have made this portrait at some point between his arrival and departure.

The work was in the collections of Metternich & Károly, related to Kaunitz by marriage. It appears that Kaunitz gave the work as a gift to one of the family's daughters instead of putting it up for sale with the rest of his paintings, in 1820. The portrait went to the Jürg Stuker gallery, in Berne, where a commercial exhibition, Privatsammlung Jürg Stuker, Altes Schloss Gerzensee, was held from 26-31 October 1989. In the exhibition, the work was attributed to Goya and was assigned number 119. It went to the collection of Eric Turquin, in Paris. It was subsequently reacquired, in 1990, by its previous owner. On 29 January 2009, it was put on sale through the Sotheby's auction house in New York, where it sold for about 2,210,500 US dollars.