The Postcard
A postally unused postcard that was extracted from a book of 30 Goya postcards that was published by Magna Books.
Doña María Ana de Pontejos y Sandoval, Marchioness of Pontejos
Doña María de Pontejos (1762–18th. July 1834) was a patron of the artist Francisco de Goya. In 1786 at the age of twenty-four, she married the brother of the Count of Floridablanca, Francisco de Monino y Redondo, King Charles III of Spain’s progressive prime minister. At that time, her husband served as Spain's ambassador to Portugal.
In the famous painting by Goya, painted shortly after the wedding, the marchioness is shown dressed in attire inspired by Queen Marie Antoinette in pre–revolutionary France.
Marie Antoinette was known to like to dress as a shepherdess. The elaborate coiffure, straw sun hat, and flower-trimmed gown imitate the attire at the French court in Versailles.
This extravagant, foreign-influenced costume accentuates the marchioness's tightly corseted waist, fashionable among Spanish noblewomen. Her erect, regal bearing and aloof gaze derive from Diego Velázquez' royal portraits.
In her right hand, she delicately holds a pink carnation, an emblem of love that is often shown held by brides. The marchioness's pug dog at her feet, with its ribbons and bells, echoes the stiff, doll-like pose of its mistress.
Goya used the outdoors as a setting. In the background, green trees can be seen, which are not very detailed, and which contrast with the white dress of the marchioness.
Trees, grass and shrubbery, simplified almost to abstraction, set off the fragile, wasp–waisted figure of the marchioness.
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,, brother of the all–powerful Count of Floridablanca, another of Goya's noble patrons.
Francisco de Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered to be the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th. and early 19th. centuries.
His paintings, drawings, and engravings reflected contemporary historical upheavals, and influenced important 19th.- and 20th.-century painters.
Goya is often referred to as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the Moderns.
Goya was born to a middle-class family on the 30th. March 1746 in Fuendetodos in Aragon. He studied painting from the age of 14 under José Luzán y Martinez, and moved to Madrid to study with Anton Raphael Mengs.
He married Josefa Bayeu in 1773. Goya became a court painter to the Spanish Crown in 1786, and this early portion of his career is marked by portraits of Spanish aristocracy and royalty, and Rococo-style tapestry cartoons designed for the royal palace.
Although Goya's letters and writings survive, little is known about his thoughts. He had a severe and undiagnosed illness in 1793 that left him deaf, after which his work became progressively darker and more pessimistic.
His later easel and mural paintings, prints and drawings appear to reflect a bleak outlook on personal, social and political levels, and contrast with his social climbing.
He was appointed Director of the Royal Academy in 1795, the year Manuel Godoy made an unfavorable treaty with France.
In 1799, Goya became Primer Pintor de Cámara, the highest rank for a Spanish court painter.
In the late 1790's he completed his La Maja Desnuda, a remarkably daring nude for the time, and clearly indebted to Diego Velázquez. In 1800–01, he painted Charles IV of Spain and his family, also influenced by Velázquez.
In 1807, Napoleon led the French army into the Peninsular War against Spain. Goya remained in Madrid during the war, which seems to have affected him deeply. Although he did not speak his thoughts in public, they can be inferred from his Disasters of War series of prints (although published 35 years after his death) and his 1814 paintings The Second of May 1808 and The Third of May 1808.
Other works from his mid-period include the Caprichos and Los Disparates etching series, and a wide variety of paintings concerned with insanity, mental asylums, witches, fantastical creatures and religious and political corruption, all of which suggest that he feared for both his country's fate and his own mental and physical health.
His late period culminates with the Black Paintings of 1819–1823, applied to the plaster walls of his house the Quinta del Sordo (House of the Deaf Man) where, disillusioned by political and social developments in Spain, he lived in near isolation.
Goya eventually abandoned Spain in 1824 to retire to the French city of Bordeaux, accompanied by his much younger maid and companion, Leocadia Weiss, who may have been his lover.
There he completed his La Tauromaquia series and a number of other works. Following a stroke that left him paralyzed on his right side, Goya died on the 16th. April 1828 aged 82.
