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El retrato del rey fue vendido por el pintor.

El retrato del rey fue vendido por el pintor.
The portrait of the king was sold by the painter.
From Lesson 172:The passive voice (fue por)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about El retrato del rey fue vendido por el pintor.

Why is fue used here instead of estuvo?
In Spanish, the passive voice (where an action is done to the subject) always uses ser. Because the portrait is receiving an action done by someone else, we must use fue (the past tense of ser) rather than estar.
Why do we use fue instead of era?
The selling of the portrait was a single, completed event in the past. Therefore, we use the preterite tense (fue) instead of the imperfect tense (era), which would imply an ongoing or repeated background action.
Does the word vendido change if the subject changes?
Yes! In the passive voice, the past participle (vendido) acts like an adjective and must agree in gender and number with the subject receiving the action. Since el retrato is masculine singular, it is vendido. If the subject were las pinturas (the paintings), it would change to fueron vendidas.
Why do we use por instead of para before el pintor?
In a passive sentence, por is always used to introduce the agent, meaning the person or thing actually doing the action. Here, por translates to 'by', showing that the painter is the one who did the selling.

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