Voces del Prado

The Countess of Chinchón on a seasonal basis

Alicia Quintana Martínez, Head of the Education Service, 1983-2007

The Countess of Chinchón, a painting bought by the Prado in those days, paying around four billion pesetas, it belonged to the Dukes of Chueca and also to her descendants in Italy, and they were so reluctant to sell it. There was a time when in summer, when they closed down the Palace of Chueca while they went away on vacation, they would send the painting, "La Chinchona", to the Prado Museum. The Prado took care of transport, insurance, and of hanging the picture on the wall. When they returned from their vacation they would take back the painting. In June the workers would say "The Chinchona is here, let's go see the Chinchona," and at the end of the summer it was "They've taken back the Chinchona." Manuela would get upset when we called it Chinchona, but it's funny that Chinchón was the name that was once used for the quinine that came in from the Americas. The word was in use, but not for that painting.
That painting to me is one of Goya's summits: a young girl who is married, pregnant, virtually unaware of everything that has happened to her. With her sweet little face, her hair standing, the non-existent background that surrounds her. I used to tell my students, "Look, this is the ring from the anisette of The Countess of Chinchón", there used to be a distillery there that no longer exists, it's a pity I couldn't keep all that.
I think it's my favourite painting, and every time I come to the Museum I visit that hall. I would have given her a hall of her own.