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| Maria del Pilar, the thirteenth Duchess of Alba, first met Goya in the late 1780s through the Osumar family who had bought several paintings from the artist. Maria was fond of collecting outcasts who did not fit society. She had a dwarf, an old, stuttering monk, an idiot named Benito, and now, a deaf painter named Francisco Goya.
Maria del Pilar Teresa Cayetana de Silva had thirty-one Christian names, She owned seventeen palaces and vast tracts of land from Avila in the north to Donana in the south: it was said that she could walk the length of Spain without ever stepping off her own estates. Her family was more wealthy than the Bourbon kings, but she was the last of an ancient line; she had no uncles or aunts, no brothers or sisters and no children of her own and when she died a mysterious wasting disease it was presumed she had been poisoned by the order of the Queen, Maria Luisa. The artist painted the duchess (who was a widow) at her home at Donana and lived with her for about seven months. The painting of the duchess is dated 1797 and she stands pointing her finger at two words painted in the sand: "Only Goya." Not long after this painting was done, the word "only" was painted over with a thin layer of paint. The word was discovered years later when restorations had been done to the artwork. Goya's name appears again on the Duchess' ring. The question implied by these discoveries is that Goya may have had an affair with Maria del Pilar. Some proof exists to support this: In February, 1797, the Duchess of Alba sat down to write her will, says Blackburn. The last named beneficiary was a boy named Javier, the 12-year old son of Francesco Goya. It was the only occasion, on which her side of the relationship with Goya was referred to at all. The Duchess died at the age of 39 in July, 1802, but her story does not end here. Queen Maria Luisa came to take all of the Duchess' possessions, including Goya's paintings. It was assumed that this queen had poisoned Maria out of personal motive. In order to settle the question of whether or not the queen had really poisoned the Duchess, in 1945 Maria's remains were exhumed. The purpose was twofold: to discover if Maria had, in fact, been poisoned, and to also see if the structure of her bones fit the controversial painting by Goya named The Naked Maya (La Maja Desnuda). The autopsy revealed that Maria had not been poisoned, which cleared the queen's reputation, but her body proportions fit Goya's painting named The Naked Maja. This merely added to the assumption that Maria del Pilar and Goya had a love affair. One would think that all individuals named in Maria del Pilar's will would have benefitted from the allowance she bestowed on them. But by the time the will had been approved and the courts ordered the distribution of the wealth, forty years had elapsed and most of those named in the will were dead except, of course, Goya and his son, Javier. The allowance most certainly contributed to Goya's greater freedom to dedicate to his art. ~from "Old Man Goya" by Julia Blackburn |
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| The Nake Maja (La Maja Desnuda). Original Size: 38.18" X 74.80"
Painted: 1797-98T |
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