Mariana Waldstein, novena marquesa de Santa Cruz

The woman in this full-length is Mariana Waldstein, born in Vienna to Austrian nobility and married young to a much older Spanish marquis, whose court post made him, of all things, Goya's own superior as a royal painter. She was not just a sitter to be flattered. She painted in oils and pastel, copied famous pictures, and was admitted to Madrid's Royal Academy of Fine Arts, a rare thing for a woman around 1797. Goya sets her outdoors against low hills and trees, standing at ease. He painted her in the same busy years he was making the biting prints of the Caprichos, poking at the vanities of the very Madrid society she belonged to, and here that sharp eye is turned instead to steady, respectful portraiture.