Portrait of the Duchess of Alba

Goya painted this in 1795, when he was first painter to the Spanish king and had begun spending long stretches at the estates of the Duchess of Alba, María Cayetana de Silva, one of the wealthiest women in Spain. She stands in white muslin with a red sash, a small bolognese dog at her feet wearing a matching red bow. Look at the ground by her shoes and you can make out an inscription, painted as if scratched into the earth, dedicating the picture to the duchess and signed with his name and the year. Two years later, after her husband died, Goya painted her again dressed entirely in black.