The Countess del Carpio, Marquesa de La Solana

Goya's portrait of the Countess del Carpio, Marquesa de la Solana from around 1793, in the Louvre, depicts a young Spanish aristocrat whose delicate, almost diaphanous quality has led generations of viewers to sense in the painting a premonition of her early death. The Louvre acquired this work in the nineteenth century as part of the sustained French enthusiasm for Goya that began with the famous 1824 Salon reception of his work and continued through the Romantic period, when his art was claimed as a precursor of modern painting by critics including Baudelaire and Théophile Gautier. The portrait's combination of psychological sensitivity — the slightly melancholy expression, the pale complexion, the delicate pink bow against a dark background — with the technical freedom of his mature brushwork places it among his most accomplished female portraits. Its presence in the Louvre gives Parisian visitors direct access to one of the finest examples of Goya's intimate portraiture, a register quite different from the official court commissions that represent him in the Prado.

Goya renders the sitter with extraordinary delicacy, the pale skin and gossamer-light costume creating an almost spectral presence. The refined palette of pinks, blacks, and grays and the sensitive handling of the face demonstrate his ability to convey psychological and physical fragility.