Francisco de Cárdenas
- 1891
- Oil on canvas
- 125,2 x 100,5 cm
- Cat. P_223
- Comissioned from the artist in 1891
Manuel Ojeda y Siles was one of the most prolific painters of portraits of governors of the Banco de España. The Collection contains five such portraits by him, dating from the last 20 years of the 19th century. He strove to make each one different in terms of the pose of the sitter, the composition and the style of dress. He painted portraits of two successive governors: Juan Francisco Camacho is depicted wearing his robes of office and leaning on a desk containing books, but his painting of Francisco de Cárdenas is a no-frills portrait in which there is no table. He is holding a book in his hands, and is shown wearing a dark suit. Two gold chains can be glimpsed, but the effect is comparatively sober.
Governor of the Banco de España 1884 - 1885
The best description of Francisco de Cárdenas is that given by Cánovas: 'He is a man without ambition, and is well suited to triumph in all fields, as a good intellectual'. He was highly intelligent and hard-working, but had no personal political ambitions. The range of activities that he covered is remarkable.
He studied Law in Seville and held the Chair of Moral Philosophy, Logic and Grammar there. He began to practise law after completing his law degree and that remained his core profession throughout his life. His renown as a jurist went beyond the private practice of law.
As a politician, he was a member of the Conservative Party. He held technical posts concerned with law in successive governments, such as Under-Secretary to the Ministry of Governance, Director General of Overseas Affairs, Advisor to the Treasury Ministry, member of the Codification Committee, Director General of the Register, Member of Parliament for Daroca (1853 & 1857), Deputy Chairman of the Lower House of Parliament (1857-1958), a lifetime senator (1864-1898) and, finally, Minister for Grace and Justice (1874-1875). He also served as Governor of the Banco de España (1884-1885) and of the Banco Hipotecario (1890), Dean of the Bar Association of Madrid (1890) and Ambassador to the Holy See (1876-1881).
In all these posts he worked hard to modernise the Spanish legislative system. Initially as a member of the Codification Committee (from 1851) and later as an MP, a senator and Minister for Grace and Justice, he helped to write legislation of great importance in all areas of law: the reform of the Criminal Code and the Civil Code, the Criminal Procedures Act, the legislation establishing the basis for the organisation of courts of appeal, the reorganisation of savings banks, the reform of the Supreme Court, legislation eliminating civil privileges, the setting up of property register and, above all, Spain's first Mortgage Act (1861), which he drew up together with Claudio de Luzuriaga and Pedro Gómez de la Serna.
His loyalty to his convictions led him to make difficult decisions, e.g., to resign in 1875 from his post as Minister of Grace and Justice in Cánovas's government due to disagreements over the criteria for introducing universal suffrage, and to go into exile in Paris following the Revolution of 1868.
Before entering politics, he founded and directed the publications Revista Andaluza, El Conservador, El Derecho, El Globo and El Derecho Moderno. Throughout his life, he published academic papers and research documents on the history of law. This led to him being invited to join institutions such as the Royal Academy of Moral and Political Science (1857), the Academy of Jurisprudence and Legislation of Toulouse (1869) and the Royal Academy of History (1871). On his death in 1898 he bequeathed his personal library of over 10,000 volumes to the Academy of Moral and Political Science.
Other works by Manuel Ojeda y Siles