Portrait of the Marquesa de Pontejos
The portrait of the Marchesa de Pontejos was created around 1786, painted by Francisco de Goya . The oil painting shows a young Spanish noblewoman as a life-size shepherdess with a pug .
The marquesa
Doña María Ana de Pontejos y Sandoval, marquesa de Pontejos , born in 1762 and died on July 18, 1834, was a patron of the artist Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes. In 1786, at the age of twenty-four, she married the brother of Conde de Floridablanca , a minister at the court of Charles III. from Spain ; Maria Ana's husband was Spain's ambassador to Portugal at the time of her marriage. She commissioned the portrait shortly after their wedding.
The portrait
The painting shows the young woman life-size against the background of a park landscape, dressed in a tight dress with rose appliqués, which not only emphasizes the figure, but also makes it slim. The skirt is intricately gathered and gives an idea of the Marquesa's legs behind the sheer underskirt. In her hand she holds a pink carnation , very popular as an emblem of love in the 18th century and also the symbol of a bride. The mask-like face is framed by an elaborately directed hairstyle, which is crowned with a sun hat whose feathers are lost in the clouds. The middle distance, contrasting the dress, is kept dark and disappears into a delicately laid out forest landscape and a light sky.
Shepherdess disguise was a rococo fashion , especially cultivated, for example, by Marie Antoinette , Queen of France; the Marquesa's hairstyle, her sun hat and the dress adorned with flowers seem inspired by the French court. The mastery of the various painting styles that characterize Goya, such as the fleeting brushwork in the background, but also the extremely careful elaboration of the figure in glazes , are reminiscent of the English portrait painting of Thomas Gainsborough in this picture .
The pug
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The immobility of the marquesa with the effect of a tapestry is contrasted by the pug dog, who wears a pink neck ribbon with bells and runs towards the viewer. It is determined and precisely recorded, the lights are randomly placed.
Since the 17th century, the pug had increasingly become a popular lap dog at the princely courts with a preference for chinoiseries , "a luxury being, not a court dog, but a court dog". In the 18th century, especially in France, he was en vogue as a fashion dog . Numerous portraits of noble and noble ladies all over Europe, for example the portrait of Anna Amalia , as a duplicate in the Weimar library and in the Wittumspalais , show the animal as an accessory .
For portraits like the one of the Marquesa de Pontejos, the artist worked with background staffage and a dress on a stand, the conventionally designed face was inserted. The pug shows "as an addition" in shape and movement the study of the animal from nature.
classification
From 1786 Goya was initially a court painter for the Spanish King Charles III. , then worked for Charles IV of Spain. The portrait was a commissioned work; there was no contact between the model and the painter. In the colors, the gradation of the picture levels and the soft treatment of the background there is a certain similarity to the tapestries, including El Pelele , which Goya also designed for the Spanish court. The family portrait of the Duke and Duchess of Osuna with their children from 1789 (Prado, Madrid) , for example, has a similarly distant design, like the portrait of the Marchesa .
literature
- José Gudiol: Goya . Cologne 1977, p. 88f.
Web links
- To the portrait of the Marquesa de Pontejos (Spanish)
- The Marquesa de Pontejos in Washington (including information on the provenance of the painting )
Individual evidence
- ↑ "Mopsiade". Pugs from three centuries . Exhibition in the Schlossmuseum Darmstadt from March 17 to April 15, 1973. Catalog p. III.
- ^ Picture of Anna Amalia with a pug at her feet on the left
- ↑ José Gudiol: Goya . Cologne 1977, p. 88