Retrato de dona Antonia Zárate

Goya painted this celebrated Spanish actress, Antonia Zarate, in about 1805, three years before French armies poured over the Pyrenees and turned Spain into a battleground. For now the mood is calm and fashionable. She sits in a black silk gown cut in the high-waisted Empire style then arriving from France, a black lace mantilla over her hair and shoulders, a closed fan in her gloved hands. Goya catches the sheen of the silk and the fine net of the lace against her pale, slightly melancholy face. The gilded sofa beneath her was not her own but a prop from his studio, one he set other sitters on as well, dressing an actress for the part of a great lady.