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A woman with pale skin, wearing a silvery-gray dress adorned with white ribbons and light pink roses, stands looking out at us with a small, pug dog by her feet in this vertical portrait painting. The woman’s body is angled slightly to our right but she looks at us with dark eyes under faint, arched brows. Her nose is rounded, her cheeks smooth and flushed, and her pale pink lips are closed. Her face is framed in a cloud of nickel-gray hair, and tendrils curl down over her shoulders. She wears a wide-brimmed straw hat with a white ribbon set on the back of her head and slightly off to one side. The bodice of her dress has a low, curving neck. This area is loosely painted to create the impression of layers of lace. A band of intertwined pale pink roses and delicate green leaves borders the outer edge of the lace. The dress has long, tight sleeves with lace at the cuffs and the notably narrow waist is tied with a blush-pink ribbon. The full, silver skirt is picked up to create a row of puffs, like the top of a muffin, around her knees. Bunches of pink roses and white ribbons are nestled into the puffs, and below, the skirt falls in long, vertical pleats to her ankles. She wears white stockings and pointed, petal-pink shoes. In her left arm, on our right, she holds a closed fan loosely at her side, almost lost behind the skirt. She holds a pink carnation with a full bloom and a bud on a long, curving stem in her other hand, by her hip. A caramel-brown pug with a black face, wearing a pink collar lined with three bells, stands facing us with one front paw lifted, to our right of the woman's feet. The landscape is painted in tones of mint and sage green for grass beneath trees enclosing the space the woman stands in, sand brown for the ground, and icy blue for the sky above.

Francisco Goya

The Marquesa de Pontejos, c. 1786

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 52

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 210.3 x 127 cm (82 13/16 x 50 in.)

framed: 231.8 x 146.4 cm (91 1/4 x 57 5/8 in.)

Credit Line

Andrew W. Mellon Collection

Accession Number

1937.1.85

Artists / Makers

Francisco Goya (artist) Spanish, 1746 - 1828

Image Use

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Overview

Trees, grass, and shrubbery, simplified almost to abstraction, set off the fragile, wasp–waisted figure of María Ana de Pontejos y Sandoval, the Marquesa de Pontejos. Splendidly attired, she typifies those ladies of the Spanish aristocracy who affected the "shepherdess" style of Marie Antoinette, so popular in pre–revolutionary France.

The 18th century's sentimental fondness for nature, influenced by the writings of Jean–Jacques Rousseau, is alluded to in the parklike setting, the roses arranged around the bodice of the gown and tucked into the folds of the voluminous overskirt, and in the carnation that the marquesa holds with self–conscious elegance. Framing her artfully arranged coiffure, the broad–brimmed picture hat again bespeaks high fashion, perhaps imported from England; such hats were often seen in contemporary portraits by Gainsborough and other British painters. While the painting's pale tones reflect the last stages of the rococo in Spanish art, the overall silvery gray–green tonality is equally reminiscent of the earlier Spanish master, Velázquez, whose paintings Goya had studied and copied.

Goya probably painted this portrait on the occasion of the marquesa's first marriage, to Francisco de Monino y Redondo, brother of the all–powerful Count of Floridablanca, another of Goya's noble patrons.

More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication Spanish Paintings of the Fifteenth through Nineteenth Centuries, which is available as a free PDF https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/spanish-painting-15th-19th-centuries.pdf

Provenance

The sitter [1762-1834], Casa Pontejos and Palacio Miraflores, Madrid; her third husband, Joaquín Pérez Vizcaíno y Moles [1790-1840], Palacio Miraflores, Madrid;[1] his son-in-law, Don Manuel de Pando y Fernández, Marqués de Miraflores, Palacio Miraflores, by 1867;[2] Don Manuel's granddaughter, Genoveva de Sanmiego y Pando, Marquesa Viuda [widow] de Martorell and Marquesa de Miraflores y de Pontejos, Palacio Miraflores, by 1900;[3] her son, Don Manuel Alvarez de Toledo, Marqués de Miraflores y de Pontejos, Palacio Miraflores, by 1900;[4] sold July 1931 through Mrs. Walter H. [Anna] Schoellkopf, Madrid, and (M. Knoedler & Co., New York and Paris) to Andrew W. Mellon, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.; deeded December 1934 to The A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1937 to NGA.

[1] Walter Cook, "Spanish Paintings in the National Gallery of Art II: Portraits by Goya," Gazette des Beaux-Arts 28 (1945): 152 n 2. On Vizcaíno's life and career and on his inheritance of his wife's estate, see Eduardo C. Puga, "El Marqués de Pontejos," La ilustración española y americana 39 (8 May 1895): 286-287.

[2] Charles Yriate, Goya: sa biographie et le catalogue de l'oeuvre, Paris, 1867: 139. Basic biographical information about the members of the house of Pontejos is given by Alberto and Arturo García Carrafa, Diccionario heráldico y genealógico de apellidos españoles y americanos, vol. 71, Madrid, 1956: 137-140; and by Juan Moreno de Guerra y Alonso, Guía de la grandeza Madrid, 1917: 228-229.

[3] Obras de Goya, exh. cat., Ministerio de Instruccion Pública y Bellas Artes, Madrid, 1910: 32, no. 92. The painting was also recorded in her possession by S. L. Benusan, "A Note upon the Paintings of Francisco José Goya," The Studio 24 (1901): 156; Albert F. Calvert, Goya: an Account of his Life and Works, London, 1908: 193, no. 215; Paul Lafond, Goya, Paris, 1910: 6; Hugh Stokes, Francisco Goya, London, 1914: 338, no. 251; Aureliano de Beruete y Moret, Goya, pintor de retratos, Madrid, 1915: 39; Valerian von Loga, Francisco de Goya, Munich, 1923: 200, no. 307; Colección de cuatrocientos y nueve reproducciones de cuadros, dibujos, y aquafuertes de Don Francisco de Goya precididas de un epistolario del gran pintor y noticias biograficas por Don Francisco Zapatar (1860), Madrid, 1924: no. 58.

[4] Pinturas de... Goya, exh. cat., 1928: 23, no. 18.6. Lively accounts of the negotiations involved in this sale are given by David Edward Finley, A Standard of Excellence, Washington, 1973: 21-22; and John Walker, Self-Portrait with Donors , Boston, 1974: 125.

Associated Names

Alvarez de Toledo, Manuel, Don
Knoedler & Company, M.
Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, The A.W.
Mellon, Andrew W.
Pando y Fernández, Manuel de, Don
Pontejos y Sandoval, María Ana de, Doña
Sanmiego y Pando, Genoveva de
Schoellkopf, Walter H., Mrs.
Vizcaíno y Moles, Joaquín Pérez

Exhibition History

1900: Obras de Goya, Ministerio de Instruccíon Pública y Bellas Artes, Madrid, 1900, no. 92.

1918: Exposición de Retratos de Mujeres Españolas por Artistas españoles anteriores a 1850, Sociedad Española de Amigos del Arte, Madrid, 1918, no. 33, repro.

1928: Pinturas de Goya, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, 1928, no. 18.

1941: Spanish Painting, Toledo [Ohio] Museum of Art, 1941, no. 84.

1979: L'Art européen à la cour d'Espagne au XVIIIe siecle, Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux; Grand Palais, Paris; Museo del Prado, Madrid, 1979-1980, 67-68, no. 18.

1982: On loan to the National Gallery, London, 1982-1983.

1986: Goya: The Condesa de Chinchon and Other Paintings, Drawings and Prints from Spanish and American Private Collections and the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1986-87, unpaginated brochure.

1986: On loan to the State Hermitage Museum, Leningrad, 1986.

1988: Goya and the Spirit of the Enlightenment, Prado, Madrid; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1988-1989, no. 9.

1996: Goya 1746-1828, Museo del Prado, Madrid, 1996, no. 67, repro.

2001: Goya: La imagen de la mujer [Goya: Images of Women], Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2001-2002, no. 60 (Spanish cat.), no. 26 (English cat.), color repro.

2006: Goya e la tradizione italiana, Fondazione Magnani-Rocca, Parma, 2006, no. 29, repro.

Technical Summary

The support is a medium-weight plain-weave fabric, lined with wax resin and mounted on a new stretcher in 1968. The tacking margins of the original fabric have been cropped.

The red ground is visible where the paint is thinly applied or abraded. Goya applied oil paint in a variety of techniques ranging from thin glazes to opaque layers in light-colored areas. Contour adjustments are visible on the left side of the waist and the hem of the dress. The position of the feet has been shifted.

The painting is structurally secure. There is scattered abrasion throughout the figure and in the background.

Bibliography

1860: Colección de cuatrocientos y nueve reproducciones de cuadros, dibujos, y aquafuertes de Don Francisco de Goya precididas de un epistolario del gran pintor y noticias biográficas por Don Francisco Zapatar. Madrid, 1860: no.5.

1867: Yriarte, Charles. Goya, sa biographie et le catalogue de l'oeuvre. Paris, 1867: 139.

1887: Viñaza, Conde de la (Cipriano Muñoz y Manzano). Goya: su tiempo, su vida, sus obras. Madrid, 1887: 271, no. 158.

1901: Benusan, Samuel Levy. "A Note upon the Paintings of Francisco José Goya." The Studio 24 (1901): 156, repro. 158.

1902: Benusan, Samuel Levy. "Goya: His Times and Portraits." The Connoisseur 4 (1902): 123.

1907: Oertel, Richard. Francisco de Goya. Leipzig, 1907: 86, fig. 61.

1908: Calvert, Albert F. Goya: An Account of His Life and Works. London, 1908: 139, no. 215, pl. 88.

1910: Lafond, Paul. Goya. Paris, 1910: 6, pl. 43.

1914: Stokes, Hugh. Francisco Goya. London, 1914: 168, 338, no. 251.

1916: Beruete y Moret, Aureliano de. Goya, pintor de retratos. Madrid, 1915: 39, 173, no. 94, pl. 9 (Also English ed. Translated by Selwyn Brinton. London, 1922: 47-48, 207, no. 101, pl. 9).

1921: Loga, Valerian von. Francisco de Goya. Munich, 1921: 58-59, 70, 199, no. 388, fig. 64.

1928: Constable, William George. "The Goya Exhibition at Madrid." The Burlington Magazine 52 (1928): 307.

1928: Desparmet Fitz-Gerald, Xavier. L'oeuvre peint de Goya. 4 vols. Paris, 1928-50: 2:49, no. 330; vol. 1 of plates: pl. 257.

1930: Sánchez Cantón, Francisco Javier. Goya. Paris, 1930: 37, 70, 96-97, pl. 15.

1937: Cortissoz, Royal. An Introduction to the Mellon Collection. Boston, 1937: 43.

1937: Frankfurter, Alfred M. "The Mellon Gift to the Nation." Art News 35 (9 January 1937): 13.

1941: Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 88-89, no. 85, pl. VII.

1941: Ritchie, Andrew Carnduff. "The Eighteenth Century in the National Gallery: Italian, English, French, and Spanish Masters." Art News 40 (June, 1941): 39, repro. 20.

1942: Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 241, repro. 211.

1944: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 128, color repro.

1945: Cook 1945, 151-153, fig 2.

1949: Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 50, repro.

1951: Sánchez Cantón, Francisco Javier. Vida y obras de Goya. Madrid, 1951: 35-36, 38, 153-154, pl. 17. Translated by Paul Burns, Madrid, 1964.

1955: Gassier, Pierre. Goya. Paris, 1955: 32, 96.

1956: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1956: 34, color repro.

1957: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): pl. 90.

1958: Gaya Nuño, Juan Anotonio. La pintura española fuera de España; historia y catàlogo. Madrid, 1958: 159, no. 897, pl. 253.

1960: Evans, Grose. Spanish Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1960 (Booklet Number Ten in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 36, color repro.

1960: The National Gallery of Art and Its Collections. Foreword by Perry B. Cott and notes by Otto Stelzer. National Gallery of Art, Washington (undated, 1960s): 20, color repro. 15.

1961: Havemeyer, Louisine B. Sixteen to Sixty: Memoirs of a Collector. New York, 1961: 167.

1963: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 232, repro.

1964: Trapier, Elizabeth de Gué. Goya and His Sitters. New York, 1964: 4, 52, no. 5, figs. 5-6.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 60.

1966: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:342-343, color repro.

1968: Gandolfo, Giampaolo et al. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Great Museums of the World. New York, 1968: 14, 125-126, color repro.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture: Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 52, repro.

1968: Shickel, Richard. The World of Goya, 1746-1828. (Time-Life Library of Art.) New York, 1968: 65, 81, color ill.

1970: Gassier, Pierre, and Juliet Wilson. Vie et oeuvre de Francisco Goya. Paris, 1970. Translated by C. Hauch and J. Wilson. New York, 1971: 30, 61-62, 78, no. 221, color repro. 62, repro. 94 (1981 ed.: same pp. as above).

1971: Gudiol y Ricart, José. Goya: 1746-1828; Biography, Analytical Study and Catalogue of His Paintings. Translated by Kenneth Lyons. 4 vols. New York, 1971: 1: 76-77, 258, no. 266; 2: fig. 382, color fig. 383.

1973: Finley, David Edward. A Standard of Excellence: Andrew W. Mellon Founds the National Gallery of Art at Washington. Washington, 1973: [20], 21-22, repro.

1974: De Angelis, Rita. L'opera pittorica completa di Goya. Milan, 1974: 101, no. 185, color pl. 10.

1974: Walker, John. Self-Portrait with Donors. Boston, 1974: 125, repro. 126.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 158, repro.

1979: Baticle, Jeannine. "L'Art européen à la cour d'Espagne au XVIIIe siècle." RLouvre 29 (1979): 320, fig. 3.

1979: Conisbee, Philip. "Art from Spain at the Grand Palais." The Burlington Magazine 121 (1979): 821.

1979: Descargues, Pierre. Goya. London, 1979: 77.

1979: Licht, Fred. Goya: The Origins of the Modern Temper in Art. New York, 1979: 144, 224-225, fig. 105.

1979: Salas, Xavier de. Goya. Translated by G. T. Culverwell. London, 1979: 177, no. 156, color repro. 36.

1979: Watson, Ross. The National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1979: 96, pl. 85.

1980: López-Rey, José. "Chronique des arts: Espagne." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 115 (1980): 14.

1981: Glendinning, Nigel. "Goya's Patrons." Apollo 114 (1981): 241.

1983: Gállego, Julían. "Los retratos de Goya." Goya en las colecciones madrileñas. Exh. cat. Prado, Madrid, 1983: 55, fig. 24.

1984: Camón Aznar, José. Francisco de Goya. 4 vols. Saragossa, 1984: 2:47-50, color repro. 29.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 398, no. 566, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 182, repro.

1990: Brown, Jonathan, and Richard G. Mann. Spanish Paintings of the Fifteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1990: 5-9, color repro. 6.

1991: Kopper, Philip. America's National Gallery of Art: A Gift to the Nation. New York, 1991: 69, 89, color repro.

1992: National Gallery of Art. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1992: 90, repro.

2001: Goya: Images of Women. Exh. cat. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid; National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2001-2002: no. 26.

2004: Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 264-265, no. 215, color repro.

2006: Brettell, Richard R., and Stephen F. Eisenman. Nineteenth-Century Art in the Norton Simon Museum. New Haven and London, 2006: 52.