Portrait of the Marchioness of Santa Cruz
1805 Museo del Prado
About this artwork
This life-size oil portrait depicts Joaquina Téllez-Girón, the Marchioness of Santa Cruz, reclining on a velvet chaise longue. She is dressed in an empire-style gown and crowned with a laurel wreath, holding a lyre-guitar as an attribute of the muse Erato.
Did you know?
The sitter, Joaquina Téllez-Girón, was a prominent member of the Spanish aristocracy and a known patron of the arts. Goya portrays her in the guise of Erato, the Muse of lyric poetry, which was a fashionable allegorical conceit for elite portraits during this period. The painting famously left Spain in the 20th century, sparking significant controversy and legal battles regarding its status as a national cultural treasure before its eventual recovery by the Spanish state.
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Portrait of the Marchioness of Santa Cruz
Francisco Goya, 1805
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