Porträt der Doña María Teresa de Vallabriga y Rozas (1759–1820)

In the summer of 1783 Goya was invited to a country estate at Arenas de San Pedro, south-west of Madrid, to paint the household of the Infante Don Luis, younger brother of King Charles III. It was a strange household to be near a throne. Don Luis had given up his church titles and then married Maria Teresa de Vallabriga, a woman of the minor nobility, and for that match the king had barred them from court and stripped their children of the Bourbon name. She was 24 when Goya set her down here, more than 30 years younger than her husband. Goya wrote to a friend that the family treated him warmly and loaded him with gifts. The visit put him within reach of the court that had shut them out.