The Duchess of Alba (Goya)
Fundación Casa de Alba, Madrid
Hispanic Society of America, New York
La Duquesa de Alba ( The Duchess of Alba ) is the title of two paintings that Francisco de Goya painted in 1795 and 1797 by the 13th Duchess of Alba Maria del Pilar Teresa Cayetana de Silva y Álvarez de Toledo (1762-1802). The picture from 1795 shows the Duchess in a white dress, in the second picture from 1797 she appears in mourning clothes after the death of her husband in the same year. Goya also made several drawings of the Duchess, showing her in various poses, including provocatively frivolous. An etching from Goya's series Los Caprichos , there No. 61, finally depicts her as a mythical creature or witch flying away . Goya probably had an erotic love affair with the Duchess of Alba, which ended disappointingly with the final breakup. The picture of the Duchess in a white dress is part of the collection of the Fundación Casa de Alba , Madrid ; the picture of the black-clad duchess belongs to the Hispanic Society of America in New York today .
Description and interpretations
From 1840 the painting from 1795 belonged to the Duchess of Berwick and Alba and is located in the Palacio de Liria in Madrid. The 1797 image came to the New York Hispanic Society of America , New York , in 1908 .
In a letter of August 2, 1794 to his friend Martín Zapater, Goya reports that he had been commissioned to paint the Dukes of Alba in life size. He already mentions the portrait of the Duchess in white in this letter. He also mentions that the Duchess had visited him in his studio the day before to have his face painted . The picture of the Duchess in White was created in the months after her visit to Goya's studio in Madrid. In the older picture, the duchess's clothes consist of a white dress with a red sash, a red bow in her curly hair and a double, also red pearl necklace around her neck. Even the little dog wears a corresponding red bow on the left hind leg. Her left arm is adorned with gold jewelry with initials. In the more recent picture, the Duchess wears a black skirt as a symbol of mourning for her husband, who has just passed away. But here, too, Goya uses a red color contrast in the form of a sash. The thick, curly black hair in the older picture is tamed by a black mantilla . The landscape in the background is not shown in great detail, it is only used for staffage, but can be assigned to her property in Sanlúcar de Barrameda near Cádiz. But the person is the undisputed main motive.
In both paintings the Duchess is shown in an upright, dignified and stately pose en face . In this posture, she represents and looks with her haunting gaze at the viewer, or rather the artist portraying her, seriously and at eye level, whereby in the younger picture her feet can be seen with golden shoes raised in the heel, but those in the older picture through the long dress are concealed. In contrast to the white picture, her gaze is directed slightly to the left, so that a black beauty patch can be seen on her right temple. It should signal passion . In both pictures, she points down on the floor with the index finger of her right hand. In the picture from 1795 this gesture is not yet as severe as in its counterpart . Behind the little dog in the yellowish sand of a river bank, you can see a lettering: A la Duquesa de Alba Fr. co de Goya. 1795 , a common dedication, albeit in a strange place. In the picture from 1797 the imperious pose is more severe. The dog is no longer present here, there is only the name Goya standing upside down for the viewer and the year 1797 can be seen in the sand in normal legibility. During restoration work in the 1950s, the word sólo ( only ) came to light under a spot that was probably later painted over by Goya himself or a contemporary and covered with varnish . The complete writing in the sand of the river was therefore Sólo Goya ( Nur Goya ).
This is interpreted by research as an indication of the long suspected love affair between the painter and his model. Another indication of this can be seen in the gold ring that the Duchess has put on her right index finger, where Goya's name is again engraved and on a black background. On her middle finger, however, the larger ring shows the name Alba on a stone. Goya, however, painted another model in another painting, Dona Narcisa Baranana de Goicoechea from 1810 (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art ), with such a ring, but apparently had no relationship with her.
The Duchess must have played a very important role for Goya, because he kept her picture from 1797 in his studio for a long time after her death in 1802. It is unclear whether she ever saw it. In an inventory made on the occasion of the death of his wife Josefa, it was still in his possession in 1812. After that, after a division of the estate, it became the property of Goya's son Javier. Since scheming circles of the Spanish nobility spread the rumor after her death in 1802 that the Duchess had been poisoned, her descendant Jacobo Fitz-James Stuart y Falcó , 17th Duke of Alba, was evidently prompted in autumn 1945 after the The Alba’s relationship with Goya was born to a wider public, to restore the 13th Duchess’s reputation , and to have her mummified body dissected . It emerged that both of her feet were severed.
More pictures of the Duchess
Goya recorded many, even intimate, voyeuristic moments with the Duchess in a sketchbook. After the end of the relationship, Goya had to leave the castle in Sanlucár la Mayor after eight months in 1797, he began to caricature her . This is how some drawings were created that also depict the Duchess of Alba unfavorably. They are contained in his album by Sanlucár from 1796. Years later, until 1799, he published sheets in his Caprichos , which show the former lover as Janus-headed , fluttery with butterfly wings on her head and demonized .
In the etching with the title Dream of Lies and Fickleness or Dream of Lies and Impermanence Goya expressed his pain over the unhappy love for the Duchess. The duchess is depicted with a Janus head on it. Goya lies next to her as an unhappy, loving figure who passionately clasps her arm. In addition, the Duchess of Alba is said to have served as a model for the two Maja pictures ( La Maja , the fashionable beauty ) on which she can be seen once dressed and once bared . Although the facial features bear no resemblance to her, these images were in her possession. According to the Marburg art historian Susann Waldmann, it should be more about Pepa Tudó, the lover of Manuel de Godoy , who also commissioned the pictures.
| image | Year of residence |
description | image | Year of residence |
description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
1796 Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum , Rotterdam |
The Duchess of Alba with her hand raised (Sanlucár album, A. 39.) In this drawing the figure raises her hand like a classical statue. The veiled right arm is reminiscent of the Greek goddess Hestia , symbol of virginity and domestic peace. |
 |
1796/97 Spanish National Library , Madrid |
Young woman with face mask, lifting up her skirt (Sanlucár album A. 2.) This drawing can be found on the back of a sheet of paper showing a young woman in the graceful, familiar pose of the Duchess. Goya contrasts mask and unmasking. The art historian Werner Hofmann recognizes Goya's double vision here , which is still characterized by the tension between appearance - good behavior and being. |
 |
1797/98 Spanish National Library, Madrid |
Dream of lies and fickleness ( aquatint etching) The duchess is shown here with a Janus head and butterfly wings. One face is inclined to Goya and kisses him on the forehead with a smile, while the other gazes into space without emotion. In this composition, the Duchess is lying on a saddlebag , which alludes to the Spanish saying pasarse a la otra alforja (meaning: to take the liberty of choosing a new lover ) and to the man who appears on the right, to whom the right face is definitely turned could. |
 |
1797 Museo del Prado , Madrid |
Sheet 61 of the Caprichos Volaverunt (Latin: flown away, out and over ) It shows the Duchess with butterfly wings on her head, standing on three heavily caricatured figures, some interpretations in the face of the figure on the left, Goya. Goya himself writes full of allusions that the group of witches that the lady uses as a substructure is more jewelry than a necessity. There are heads that are so fully flammable that they don't need a balloon or witches to fly (so-called Prado commentary on the Caprichos). The three men, toreros from another point of view, turn her head. The Alba was very fond of bullfighting and toreros. |
Exhibitions
| Painting 1795 | Painting 1797 |
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reception
Goya's presumed liaison with the Duchess of Alba was the subject of German-language fiction and film:
- Manfred Schneider: Goya and the Duchess of the romance novel of the great Spanish painter Francisco de Goya and the Duchess of Alba. German publishing expedition, Stuttgart 1935.
-
Lion Feuchtwanger : Goya or the arge path of knowledge Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt, Frankfurt am Main 1951.
- a DEFA film adaptation of the novel from 1971.
- Carlos Saura : Film Goya en Burdeos from 1999, which also describes Goya's relationship with the Duchess
- Gustav W. Trampitsch: Burden and Passion: Goya. DVD ORF / MR-FILM (Vienna) 2004.
- The main storyline of the opera Goya by Gian Carlo Menotti also deals with the artist's relationship with the Duchess of Alba
literature
- Werner Hofmann : Goya - From heaven through the world to hell. Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-54177-1
- Susanna Partsch: Great moments in art: from Nefertiti to Andy Warhol. Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-49490-0 , pp. 159 ff. ( Limited preview in the Google book search.)
- Susann Waldmann: Goya and the Duchess of Alba. Prestel, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-7913-2026-2
Web links
- GOYA Dressed Alba. Painting. in: Der Spiegel . dated June 15, 1960.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b María del Pilar Teresa Cayetana de Silva Álvarez de Toledo, XIII duquesa de Alba (1795) on fundaciongoyaenaragon.es (Spanish)
- ↑ María del Pilar Teresa Cayetana de Silva Álvarez de Toledo, XIII duquesa de Alba (1797) on fundaciongoyaenaragon.es (Spanish)
- ↑ Susann Waldmann: Goya and the Duchess of Alba . Prestel, Munich 1998, p. 21 ff.
- ↑ Susann Waldmann: Goya and the Duchess of Alba. Prestel, Munich 1998, p. 49
- ↑ a b GOYA Dressed Alba. Painting. in: Der Spiegel. dated June 15, 1960.
- ↑ Internet page with a description of the picture from 1797
- ↑ Susann Waldmann: Goya and the Duchess of Alba . Prestel, Munich 1998, p. 50
- ^ Rainer and Rosemarie Hagen: Masterpieces in Detail , Volume 2, Taschen, Cologne 2011, p. 535
- ↑ Der Spiegel 40/1948
- ↑ Werner Hofmann : Goya - From heaven through the world to hell. Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-54177-1 , p. 61 ff.
- ↑ Mario Terés: The sleep of reason. Marburg and Zaragoza 2000, ISBN 84-89721-77-7 , p. 9.
- ↑ a b Narcissism - A mummy refuses to testify. In: Der Spiegel. dated October 2, 1948.
- ↑ Susann Waldmann, p. 52
- ↑ Werner Hofmann : Goya - From heaven through the world to hell. Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-54177-1 , p. 150
- ↑ Werner Hofmann: Goya - From heaven through the world to hell , p. 70
- ^ Sueño 14. Sueño De la mentira y la ynconstancia on museodelprado.es
- ^ Folke Nordström: Goya, Saturn and Melancholy. Studies in the Art of Goya , Stockholm 1962, pp. 142 f.
- ↑ Susann Waldmann: Goya and the Duchess of Alba. Prestel, Munich 1998, p. 67 ff.
- ^ Exposición de pinturas. Museo del Prado, Madrid 1928. ( pp. 44-46, online, PDF ).
- ↑ Goya en las colecciones madrileñas. Amigos del Museo del Prado, Madrid 1983, ISBN 84-300-9033-9 .
- ↑ La Casa de Alba cuelga sus mejores cuadros en Sevilla on elmundo.es (Spanish)
- ↑ The Legacy of the House of Alba ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on spanien-newsletter.de
- ↑ El legado de la Casa Alba. on casareal.es
- ↑ Priscilla E. Muller: Discerning Goya. In: Metropolitan Museum journal. 31. New York 1996, pp. 175-187.
- ↑ The exhibition on museodelprado.es
- ^ Goya: Order and Disorder in Pictures - Waking Dreams of Heaven and Earth. - Thirteenth Duchess of Alba, 1797 on theguardian.com
- Jump up ↑ Goya - or The Arge Path of Knowledge on moviepilot.de
- ↑ Goya2004 ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on mr-film.com
