Condesa de Altamira and Her Daughter, María Agustina
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
76 3/4 x 45 1/4 in. (195 x 115 cm)
Classification
Paintings
Department
Robert Lehman Collection
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
Accession Number
1975.1.148
Tags
Art Historical Context
In 1787–88, Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Spain's preeminent painter of the late Enlightenment, created this enchanting double portrait of the Condesa Altamira, María Ignacia Martínez de Altamira, and her young daughter, María Agustina. Commissioned for a noble Spanish family, the oil-on-canvas work (76 3/4 x 45 1/4 in.) captures a tender mother-daughter moment amidulent 18th-century finery, reflecting the aristocracy's refined world just before the upheavals of the French Revolution. Goya transitioning from Rococo elegance to the psychological depth of Romanticism, masterfully blends realis...
About the Artist
Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes) · 1746–1828
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) was a Spanish painter and printmaker considered the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Rising from modest provincial origins to become First Court Painter to Charles IV, Goya's career spanned the Enlightenment's optimism and the brutal Napoleonic invasion that shattered it. A mysterious illness in 1793 left him permanently deaf and ...