Pontejos y Sandoval, María Ana de, Doña

Biography

Doña Ana María was the only child of Don Antonio Bruno de Pontejos y Rodríguez and María Vicenta de Sandoval, who were married in 1762. Upon the death of her mother in 1801, she inherited the title Condesa de la Ventosa. In 1807, on her father's death, she became the fourth Marquesa de Pontejos. Doña Ana Marña married three times; firstly in 1786 to Francisco de Moñino y Redondo, Spanish ambassador to Portugal and brother of the Conde de la Floridablanca, First Minister to the King, 1777-1792. Floridablanca was at the height of his power at the time of the marriage; as his sister-in-law, Doña Ana Marña moved in the highest court circles. Floridablanca, however, was dismissed from the government in 1792, at which time his brother and Doña Ana María were briefly exiled to Murcia. Shortly after Moñino's death, Doña Ana María married Don Fernando de Silva y Meñesa, a royal bodyguard from a distinguished Seville family. Widowed again in 1817, she married Joaquín Pérez Vizcaíno y Moles (1790-1840), the most famous of her husbands and the one with whom she shared her titles. Vizcaíno was a member of the national militia which opposed Ferdinand VII. As a result, the marques and marquesa fled Spain in 1822, unable to return until 1833. The marquesa died in 1834 and her husband used her estate to finance business ventures. Vizcaíno later served as mayor of Madrid. A portrait of the marquesa, by Goya, is now in the NGA (1937.1.85).

Bibliography

1916

Beruete y Moret, Aureliano de. Goya, pintor de retratos. Madrid, 1915: 39 (translated by Selwyn Brinton. London, 1922)

1989

Glendinning, Nigel. Goya and the Spirit of Enlightenment. Exh. Cat. Prado, Madrid, 1989-1990: 9 -12, no. 9

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: 7-8.

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