Year 1783 Artist Francisco Goya Period Romanticism | Medium oil on canvas Created 1783 Genre Portrait | |
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Dimensions 82.5 cm × 61.7 cm (32.5 in × 24.3 in) Location Uffizi Gallery, Florence Francisco Goya artwork The Count of Floridablanca, The Family of the Infante D, The Greasy Pole, The Injured Mason, The Quail Shoot | ||
Portrait of Maria Teresa de Vallabriga on horseback (Spanish. Ecuestre Retrato de María Teresa de Vallabriga) is an oil painting by the Spanish painter Francisco Goya, from 1783.
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Description
The image, which is in the collection of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, was made by Goya oil painting preparatory sketch. They created on the basis of proper portrait of the larger disappeared. Portrait was conceived as a pair of made earlier by the Genoese Francesco Sasso horse portrait of Louis Anthony Infante.
The portrait shows María Teresa de Vallabriga, the wife of the Luis of Spain, Count of Chinchón, brother of King Charles III of Spain. Married by a younger 32 years, Maria Teresa was one of the reasons why the infante fell out of favor and was expelled from the Madrid court. Maria Teresa, was the daughter of a captain of Aragon cavalry, and had no royal lineage, so the marriage was considered morganatic, and the infant and his family lost many privileges. The family lived in Arenas de San Pedro, where, at the invitation of infant twice visited by Goya to paint several portraits.
Analysis
Goya presented Maria Teresa modeled on horse portraits of Spanish monarchs. Probably inspired by the portrait of Queen Isabella of Diego Velázquez. He borrowed from him not only the composition and background of the mountain landscape (in Goya can recognize the chain of the Sierra de Gredos and peak Almanzor), but also the technique of painting and color palette. Although this is only a sketch for a portrait, Goya made it with attention to detail. Maria Theresa is presented as young and beautiful Amazon holding the reins in an elegant gesture. He is wearing dressy attire riding - blue dress and hat decorated with feathers. A drawback of the picture is the way in which Goya introduced the horse, which appears to be frozen in position, and too large for a woman.
For the equestrian portrait and group portrait of family Infante don Luis Goya he received 30 000 reals. Infant and his wife also donated through dress and many other gifts of the artist's wife, who at the request of Maria Theresa came to Arenas de San Pedro in the summer of 1784 with Goya. Infant appointed one of the brothers Goya (Camila) as chaplain at his residence in Chinchon. Louis Anthony was in poor health and died in 1785; for Goya it meant losing a valuable client and patron.