Doña Maria Teresa de Vallabriga

In the summer of 1783 Goya was invited to stay with one of the most awkward households in Spain. Don Luis de Borbon was the younger brother of King Charles the Third, but he had given up a career in the Church and married Maria Teresa de Vallabriga, an Aragonese noblewoman well below his rank. The match cost him his place at court, and the family lived in near-exile at Arenas de San Pedro, west of Madrid. Goya spent weeks there painting the couple and their children. This is the lady of the house, Maria Teresa, still in her early twenties. Their daughter would grow up to become the Countess of Chinchon, whom Goya painted again years afterward.