Saturday, August 6, 2016

Goya's Portraits I

Francisco Goya
Portrait of Queen María Luisa
1789
Prado

"There was a lot of very savage gossip about Maria Luisa. The Russian Ambassador said she had the 'hectic mask of a ravaged courtesan', and Napoleon described the shock of meeting her when she and her husband were on their way to exile in France. She was by then in her early fifties with yellow and red flowers tucked in her grey hair and wearing an orange crepe dress she had managed to borrow from the Empress Josephine. 'She has her past and her character written on her face,' said Napoleon, 'and it surpasses anything one dares imagine.'"

Francisco Goya
Portrait of King Charles IV
1789
Prado

"I had forgotten to bring a pencil, but a guard lent me one and watched as I made notes in the room in which two violoncellos, two violins and a viola, all made by Stradivarius, were held in glass cases like a collection of stuffed birds, beautifully preserved and as mute as if they were carved from stone. These instruments had belonged to Charles IV. He used to enjoy playing the violin, he even played something for Goya, in the days when the Court Painter was still able to listen. But the King was so unskilled at his music that when he played to an audience, a second violinist would be stationed behind a curtain, to accompany him and carry him over the difficult bits."

 from Old Man Goya by Julia Blackburn (New York : Pantheon, 2002)

Francisco Goya
Portrait of the Dowager Marchioness of Villafranca
ca. 1795
Prado

Francisco Goya
Portrait of the Marchioness of Pontejos
ca. 1786
National Gallery of Art (U.S.)

Francisco Goya
The Marchioness of Villafranca painting a portrait of her husband
1804
Prado

Francisco Goya
Portrait of the Duke of Alba
1795
Prado

Francisco Goya
The Duchess of Alba with her former governess La Beata
1795
Prado

Francisco Goya
Portrait of Don Andrés del Peral
1798
oil on panel
National Gallery, London

Francisco Goya
Portrait of Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos
1798
Prado

Francisco Goya
Portrait of the Countess of Chinchón
1800
Prado

Francisco Goya
Portrait of Tadea Arias de Enríquez
ca. 1789
Prado

Francisco Goya
Portrait of the Duchess of Abrantes
1816
Prado

The final two portraits by Goya were acquired in Spain in the 1890s by Mr. and Mrs. H.O. Havemeyer, the rapacious yet discerning New York collectors. Much of their vast accumulation was bequeathed in the 1920s by Mrs. Havemeyer to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Each of her three children also received substantial groups of paintings. Many of those that descended to Adaline Havemeyer were later donated in memory of her parents to the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. This commendable gift included the fresh and splendid pair below.

Francisco Goya
Portrait of Bartolomé Sureda y Miserol
ca. 1803-04
National Gallery of Art (U.S.)

Francisco Goya
Portrait of Thérèse Louise de Sureda
ca. 1803-04
National Gallery of Art (U.S.)