Audio Stop 621

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A woman with pale skin, wearing a silvery-gray dress adorned with white ribbons and light pink roses, stands looking out at us with a small, pug dog by her feet in this vertical portrait painting. The woman’s body is angled slightly to our right but she looks at us with dark eyes under faint, arched brows. Her nose is rounded, her cheeks smooth and flushed, and her pale pink lips are closed. Her face is framed in a cloud of nickel-gray hair, and tendrils curl down over her shoulders. She wears a wide-brimmed straw hat with a white ribbon set on the back of her head and slightly off to one side. The bodice of her dress has a low, curving neck. This area is loosely painted to create the impression of layers of lace. A band of intertwined pale pink roses and delicate green leaves borders the outer edge of the lace. The dress has long, tight sleeves with lace at the cuffs and the notably narrow waist is tied with a blush-pink ribbon. The full, silver skirt is picked up to create a row of puffs, like the top of a muffin, around her knees. Bunches of pink roses and white ribbons are nestled into the puffs, and below, the skirt falls in long, vertical pleats to her ankles. She wears white stockings and pointed, petal-pink shoes. In her left arm, on our right, she holds a closed fan loosely at her side, almost lost behind the skirt. She holds a pink carnation with a full bloom and a bud on a long, curving stem in her other hand, by her hip. A caramel-brown pug with a black face, wearing a pink collar lined with three bells, stands facing us with one front paw lifted, to our right of the woman's feet. The landscape is painted in tones of mint and sage green for grass beneath trees enclosing the space the woman stands in, sand brown for the ground, and icy blue for the sky above.

Francisco Goya

The Marquesa de Pontejos, c. 1786

West Building, Main Floor - Gallery 52

The 18th century’s sentimental fondness for nature, influenced by the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, is alluded to here in the park-like setting, the roses arranged in the marquesa’s gown, and the carnation that she holds with self-conscious elegance. Framing her artfully arranged hairstyle, the broad-brimmed hat bespeaks high fashion, perhaps imported from England. While the painting’s pale tones reflect the last stages of the rococo in Spanish art, the overall silvery gray-green tonality is equally reminiscent of the earlier Spanish master Diego Velázquez, whose paintings Francisco de Goya had studied and copied.

Read full audio transcript

NARRATOR:
This portrait, made about 1786, is an early work by the Spanish painter Francisco de Goya.

Philip Conisbee.

PHILIP CONISBEE:
“What will strike you about this portrait is that it’s full-length and life size. So this tells us right away that it was a rather grand sitter. And, in fact, she was the Marquesa de Pontejos. She married the Spanish ambassador to Portugal, who was also the brother of the King of Spain’s first minister. So she moved in the very top circles. And she is shown with her pet pug dog in the lower right hand corner, quite a charming little fellow he is.”

NARRATOR:
Pugs were popular with European royalty-- this one sports a pink ribbon with bells, matching the pink sash that draws attention to his mistress’s tiny, tightly corseted waist. The painting probably celebrates the sitter’s marriage, which took place when she was 24 years old.

PHILIP CONISBEE:
“And she is shown as the attractive young woman she was, maybe a little stiff-looking but then we have to allow for the formalities of upper class life in late 18th-century Spain. She’s wearing this fabulous gray dress with beautiful white bows there are roses stitched to the dress all around, probably artificial roses. And roses have long been symbols of love. This is one of the indicators to us that it’s a wedding portrait. Also she’s holding a carnation which is another symbol of passion and fidelity.”

“We associate this kind of elaborate costume with French fashions in the 18th century. You think of Marie-Antoinette and a sitter such as this would have been a great admirer of French fashion and French ideas.”

NARRATOR:
Since 1700, Spain had been ruled by the Bourbons, relatives of the French royal family. In fact, Goya was eventually appointed court painter to Charles IV, the Bourbon king of Spain, giving him easy access to the upper levels of society.

PHILIP CONISBEE:
“You will see that the face is quite finely painted. He clearly did this from observation. The dress is more freely handled with broad sweeping strokes of the brush, giving a real sense of the lightness and airiness of the lace and the tulle.”

NARRATOR:
The landscape background is also freely worked in delicate pastel shades that give it a lyrical, fairytale quality.

PHILIP CONISBEE:
“It’s an early work. He hasn’t quite got into that dark romantic mood which perhaps we more readily associate with his name.”

NARRATOR:
Elsewhere in this gallery you’ll find other, later portraits by Goya, with more somber colors and darker backgrounds.

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