The Marquesa de Pontejos

When Goya painted this young woman around 1786, he was still climbing at the Spanish court, and she was marrying into its very center. Her groom was the brother of the Count of Floridablanca, chief minister to the king. She wears the height of the moment, the loose shepherdess look that Marie Antoinette had made fashionable at Versailles, all pale silk, pink roses, and white ribbon, a costume that pretended at rustic simplicity while costing a fortune. In her hand she holds a single pink carnation, the old emblem of betrothal, and a small pug in a belled collar waits at her feet. The silvery grey-green light over it all is Goya remembering Velázquez, whose canvases he had studied and copied in the royal collection.