Young Lady Wearing a Mantilla and Basquina
Francisco Goya·c. 1800/1805
Historical Context
Young Lady Wearing a Mantilla and Basquina from around 1800–05, at the National Gallery of Art, celebrates the traditional Spanish female costume that had become a symbol of national identity in a period when French cultural influence was pervasive at the Spanish court. The mantilla — black or white lace covering the head and shoulders — and the basquina, a dark skirt, were the dress code of Madrid's majas and female churchgoers, a deliberately Spanish style that contrasted with the French fashions adopted by the aristocratic upper classes. Goya's celebration of this costume had cultural-political dimensions: his depictions of maja subjects throughout his career aligned him with popular Spanish culture against the Frenchified fashions of the court, even as he himself served the court as its official painter. His extraordinary technique in rendering the lace mantilla — its pattern dissolved into atmospheric impressionism rather than described thread by thread — demonstrates the technical sophistication that allowed him to simultaneously document a traditional garment and transform it into a modern painterly subject.
Technical Analysis
Goya's oil on canvas renders the black lace mantilla with extraordinary bravura, using variations of black, gray, and white to create texture and transparency, set against a luminous background that highlights the sitter's face.
Look Closer
- ◆Notice the black lace mantilla rendered with extraordinary tonal variation: Goya finds the full range of values within the black lace, creating depth and transparency simultaneously.
- ◆Look at the luminous background that highlights the sitter's face: the warm, light ground sets off the dark mantilla and the sitter's direct expression with theatrical clarity.
- ◆Observe the traditional Spanish dress as political statement: aristocratic women adopting the maja's mantilla during this period was an act of cultural nationalism against French fashion.
- ◆Find the combination of traditional costume and thoroughly modern portrait psychology: the format is traditional, but the sitter's frank, individual presence is entirely Goya's own invention.
Provenance
Probably Serafín García de la Huerta [d. 1839], Madrid, inventory of 1840.[1] Marqués de Heredia, Madrid, by 1867.[2] Benito Garriga, Madrid, by 1887;[3] (his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 24 March 1890, no. 4). Hubert Debrousse; (his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 6 April 1900, no. 45), to Kraemer, Paris;[4] sold 1906 to (Durand-Ruel, Paris); purchased by Henry Osborne Havemeyer [1847-1907], New York;[5] his widow, Louisine W. Havemeyer, née Elder, [1855-1929], New York; their daughter, Mrs. P.H.B. Frelinghuysen, née Adaline Havemeyer, [1884-1963], Morristown, New Jersey; gift to NGA 1963. [1] The painting is probably the same one owned by the Madrid collector, Serafín García de la Huerta, who died on 25 August 1839. In the inventory of his collection compiled in 1840, there is a picture described as follows: "no. 859--Otro (lienzo) de una señora con mantilla y basquiña, de Goya, de cinco cuartas de alto por tres y media de ancho, en dos mil reales" ("Another [canvas] of a lady with mantilla and basquiña, by Goya, measuring five cuartas high by three and a half wide"). Although the vertical and horizontal dimensions are about five centimeters smaller each than those of no. 1963.4.2, this is an acceptable margin of difference, given the correspondence of the subject's attire with the description in the inventory (the discrepancy may be the result of including the dimensions of the frame). For the inventory, see Marqués del Saltillo, "Colleciones madrileñas de pinturas: la de D. Serafín García de la Huerta," _Arte Español_ 18 (1950-51): 204. The association of García de la Huerta's painting with the one in the NGA is made by Xavier Desparmet Fitz-Gerald, _L'Oeuvre peint de Goya_, 2 vols. (Paris, 1928-1950), 2:168-169, who mistakenly gives the date of sale as 1850. [2] Charles Yriarte, _Goya, sa biographie et le catalogue de l'oeuvre_ (Paris, 1867): 138, lists the owner as the Marqués de Heredia. [3] According to Conde de la Viñaza, _Goya, su tiempo, su vida, sus obras_ (Madrid, 1887): 265, Garriga was then the owner of the picture. Desparmet Fitz-Gerald 1928-1950, 2:168, notes without supporting evidence that Garriga acquired the painting in 1868. [4] Information on the acquisition by Kraemer and the subsequent sale to Durand-Ruel is found in Desparmet Fitz-Gerald 1928-1950, 2:168. Desparmet Fitz-Gerald refers only to "Collection Kraemer"; "Kraemer", however, possibly could be Eugène Kraemer, a French collector whose estate, which held a Goya portrait, was sold at the Galerie Georges Petit in 1913 (_Catalogue des tableaux anciens, écoles anglaise et française du XVIIIe siécle_, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 28-29 April 1913). [5] Louisine W. Havemeyer, _Sixteen to Sixty: Memoirs of a Collector_ (New York, 1961): 153-154 and 158-159 gives an account of this purchase.
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