No painter, not even Titian himself, was more caressed at court, than
Giordano. Not only Charles II., but Philip V., delighted to do him
honor, and treated him with extraordinary favor and familiarity. His
brilliant success is said to have shortened the life of Claudio Coello,
the ablest of his Castilian rivals. According to Dominici, that painter,
jealous of Giordano, and desirous of impairing his credit at the court
of Spain, challenged him to paint in competition with him in the
presence of the King, a large composition fifteen palms high,
representing the Archangel Michael vanquishing Satan. Giordano at once
accepted the challenge, and in little more than three hours, produced a
work which not only amazed and delighted the royal judge, but confounded
poor Coello. "Look you, man," said the King to the discomfited Spaniard,
and pointing to Luca Fa-presto, "there stands the best painter in
Naples, Spain, and the whole world; verily, _he_ is a painter for a
King."
Both Charles and Queen Mariana of Neuberg, sat several times to Giordano
for their portraits. They were never weary of visiting his studio, and
took great pleasure in his lively conversation, and exhibitions of
artistic skill. One day, the Queen questioned him curiously about the
personal appearance of his wife, who she had learned was very beautiful.
Giordano dashed off the portrait of his _Cara Sposa_, and cut short her
interrogation by saying, "Here, Madame, is your Majesty's most humble
servant herself," an effort of skill and memory, which struck the Queen
as something so wonderful as to require a particular mark of her
approbation,--she accordingly "sent to the Donna Margarita a string of
pearls from the neck of her most gracious sovereign." Giordano would
sometimes amuse the royal pair, by laying on his colors with his fingers
and thumb, instead of brushes. In this manner, says Palomino, he
executed a tolerable portrait of Don Francisco Filipin, a feat over
which the monarch rejoiced with almost boyish transport. "It seemed to
him as if he was carried back to that delightful night when he first saw
his beautiful Maria Louisa dance a saraband at the ball of Don Pedro of
Aragon. His satisfaction found vent in a mark of favor which not a
little disconcerted the recipient. Removing the sculpel which the artist
had permission to wear in the royal presence, he kissed him on the crown
of the head, pronounced him a prodigy, and desired him to execute in the
same digital style, a picture of St. Francis of Assisi for the Queen."
Charles, on another occasion, complimented the artist, by saying, "If,
as a King I am greater than Luca, Luca as a man wonderfully gifted by
God, is greater than myself," a sentiment altogether novel for a
powerful monarch of the 17th century. The Queen mother, Mariana of
Austria, was equally an admirer of the fortunate artist. On occasion of
his painting for her apartment a picture of the Nativity of our Lord,
she presented him with a rich jewel and a diamond ring of great value,
from her own imperial finger. It was thus, doubtless, that he obtained
the rich jewels which astonished Palomino, and not by purchase. Charles
II., dying in 1700, Giordano continued for a time in the service of his
successor Philip V., who treated him with the same marked favor, and
commissioned him to paint a series of pictures as a present to his
grandfather, Louis XIV., of France.