3-097-624 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Alejandro Mon y Menéndez, 1850. Spanish politician and diplomat Alejandro Mon y Menéndez (1801-1882) studied law at the university in Oviedo. Under the protection of the Count of Toreno and his brother-in-law, the Marquis of Pidal, he entered politics after the death of Ferdinand VII, and was appointed Minister of Finance in 1837, 1846 and 1848. He served as prime minister of Spain in 1864. Mon y Menéndez is regarded as one of the great 19th-century financial experts and he is remembered for his fundamental reforms of the tax systems. The document and the book with which he is portrayed address some of these reforms. He was a member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences and he was awarded the Cross of Pius IX, the Cross of Leopold of Austria, Charles III and the Legion of Honour. López Piquer left the portrait unfinished on the death of his father Vicente López y Portaña - to whom the head and neck are undoubtedly attributed. The portrait is the first in a series of iconographic official portraits of ministers and public officials.