Retrato de María Teresa de Vallabriga a caballo

In the summer of 1783 Goya, not yet the famous court painter he would become, was invited to stay with the household of Don Luis de Borbon, a brother of King Charles III who had given up a cardinal's career to marry a woman beneath his rank. That woman was Maria Teresa de Vallabriga, and Goya painted her here on horseback, in a deep blue riding dress and a black feathered hat, trotting in profile against the mountains of central Spain. The pose deliberately echoes the grand equestrian portraits Velazquez had made for an earlier generation of Spanish royals. These weeks with Don Luis's family gave Goya a whole run of portraits and, more usefully, the connections that would carry him toward the court in Madrid.