Portrait of the Marquesa de Santiago

1804

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

209.9 × 126.7 cm

Status

In Museum Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-136443

The Marquesa de Santiago strikes a commanding presence, confronting the viewer directly with her hand assertively on her hip. She stands in front of a landscape of gently sloping hills dotted with cottages made up of rough, tan brushstrokes. Her sheer white lace *mantilla* veil extends to her knees and she holds a closed fan in her left hand, both traditional accessories of Spanish women in the 1700s and 1800s. The Marquesa was known to wear bold makeup, enough that her acquaintances wrote about it, and here, heavily applied rouge, powder, and lipstick accentuate her features. While other portraitists of this time often flattered or idealized their sitters, Francisco Goya frankly captured the Marquesa’s appearance and confident personality. The Marquesa, María de la Soledad Rodríguez de los Ríos Tauche, grew up the only child of a well-connected family in Madrid, eventually inheriting the three noble titles of her parents and the wealth that came with those. Married first in 1783 when she was eighteen, then again in 1790 after she was widowed, María was the one who brought greater wealth and status to her husbands. She had estates in Flanders and Spain, two million *reales* in ca…