On-line gallery
- Reference number
- P02448
- Author
- Goya y Lucientes, Francisco de (Spanish)
- Title
- María Tomasa de Palafox, Marchioness of Villafranca
- Chronology
- 1804
- Technique
- Support
- Measures
- 195 cm x 126 cm
- School
- Theme
- Shown
- Yes
- Entrance
- LEGADO
- Procedence
- Legado conde de Niebla
María Tomasa Palafox (1780-1835),
Marchioness of Villafranca, is
shown wearing a white empire-style
dress and sitting on a red silk
damask armchair, with her feet on a
cushion. She is painting a portrait
of her husband, Francisco de Borja
Álvarez de Toledo y Gonzaga, XI
Marquis of Villafranca.
The Marchioness was an academician
of merit at the Royal Academy of
Fine Arts of San Fernando in
Madrid. She was cultured and a
great lover of the arts, as well as
an amateur painter. she is looking
outside the space of the
composition, perhaps at her
husband, who appears on her
painting in the uniform of an
official of the line infantry. On
her right, over a night table, is
her palette of paints, some brushes
and a small metal bowl. The Marquis
looks back at his wife from his own
portrait in a play of glances that
Goya uses consciously, perhaps to
reflect the great love that,
according to contemporaneous
sources, this couple felt for each
other.
Location on the map
