This portrait epitomises Rococo style and is one of the most delicate and sophisticated paintings of Paret’s oeuvre, both in terms of the subject and the technique. It depicts his wife, María de las Nieves Micaela Fourdinier, at the age of 26, after eight years of marriage and two daughters together, whom the painter portrayed in another copperplate (in a private collection) that forms a pair with this work.

The young woman is depicted in a domestic interior – as revealed by the silk and wallpaper – although a large curtain closes off the background, lending the scene an air of ostentatiousness. She is seated on a carefully carved and richly upholstered chair, in keeping with her clothing and hairstyle that are in the French fashion of the time, as proven by prints included in publications such as Gallerie des modes et costumes français, begun in 1778. In this publication, her hairstyle corresponds to the so-called coiffure simple à la mode, which is characterised by her hair being pulled up above her forehead, with three large curls on the sides, the lower one falling towards her neck, while the upper part is covered with a sort of bonnet adorned with a wide ribbon. Paret enriched the edge of the ribbon with pearls and flowers of various kinds, such as the Provence rose and orange blossom. The dress is modelled following the robe à la lévite, identifiable by its long, narrow sleeves, and corresponds to one of the examples included in that publication in its chest fastening of Brandenburg-style toggles – here gilded – like the tassels on the neckline and other ornamental elements of the frock coat, which is trimmed with fur on its edges, sleeves and collar.

The deep red of the coat contrasts with the silver of the silk dress, the sheen of which makes this area of the painting a fragment typical of El Greco. The exquisite attire is complemented by Micaela’s activity: she elegantly holds a music box, or serinette, with which she teaches the canary perched on it to sing. This instrument could have been acquired in Paris, and it has been suggested that Paret may have obtained it through the trading house that his father-in-law’s relatives ran in the French capital. It is precisely the financial ease that Robert Fourdinier enjoyed, and that his children seem to have enjoyed, that dismisses the idea (held in the bibliography) of the poverty of the Parets. Hence, there is no compelling reason to think that such sumptuous attire was merely a figment of the painter’s imagination.

The lady’s interest in teaching the bird is counterbalanced by her interest in a dog shown by one of her daughters in the corresponding portrait. The portrait is completed by a table on the left of the composition on which we see a glass vase – a possible allusion to the young woman’s delicacy and virtue – containing a carnation, a symbol of love like the Provence roses. Beside them on the table are a sheet of paper and two books, one of which appears to be Ovid’s The Art of Love, which further refers to the character of this delightful painting and to the painter’s feelings towards his wife as well as represents Micaela’s status as a cultivated lady, an attribute of the Enlightenment.

It is this same culture that the artist seeks to show with the inscription in Greek characters in a cartouche at the bottom of the portrait. This is set in what appears to be a frame that creates the illusion of a painting within another painting, an artifice that he also employed in the portraits of his daughters and that lend his works uniqueness and refinement, in this case enhancing the work through the addition of exquisite ivy and roses.

Albarrán, Virginia, 'Luis Paret y Alcázar. Maria de las Nieves Micaela Fourdinier' En:. Paret, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2022, p.134-136 nº 27