Teresa Sureda

Goya painted this around 1804, at the height of his powers as a portraitist, and he painted it as much for friendship as for a fee. The sitter is Teresa Sureda, French by birth, married to Bartolomé Sureda, a Majorcan engineer Goya also portrayed. Sureda had studied porcelain-making in England and France, and in 1804 he was put in charge of the royal Buen Retiro porcelain works in Madrid. Goya seats his friend's wife stiffly upright in an Empire-style armchair, turned in profile but fixing the viewer with a direct, faintly amused look. He lingers over the blue shot silk of her coat, the white blouse, the lace at her collar. The two Sureda portraits stayed together in the family in Spain into the early 20th century, and both are now in Washington.