La marquesa de Santa Cruz

Goya painted this in 1805, at the height of his fame as court painter in Madrid and a family friend of the sitter. She is Joaquina Téllez-Girón, the young Marchioness of Santa Cruz, and her mother, the Duchess of Osuna, ordered the portrait. Goya lays her along a red divan in a thin white Empire dress, the fashion just arrived from Napoleon's France, and puts a lyre-guitar in her hands. That is not a casual prop. The yellow flowers in her hair and the lyre cast her as Erato, the ancient muse of love poetry, a compliment to a woman known for her love of music and verse. The reclining pose looks straight back to the Venuses of Titian and Velázquez in the royal collection Goya knew so well. The Prado bought the picture in 1986 for more than 6 million dollars.