The White Duchess
The White Duchess is a life sized (192 x 128 cm) oil-on-canvas painting by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya, completed in 1795 and now in the collection of the House of Alba, in the Liria Palace, in Madrid. It portrays María Cayetana de Silva, 13th Duchess of Alba, and is one of a number of portraits Goya painted of her around this time, and is usually compared alongside the similarly sized but tonally very different "Black Duchess", which was painted two years later, just after her husband, José Álvarez de Toledo died aged 39. The duke and duchess were highly placed, cultivated and well-regarded members of the 1790s Spanish Court.

The commission is first mentioned in a letter dated August 2, 1794, written to his friend Martín Zapater, which mentions that Goya that had been asked to paint life-sized portraits of the Dukes of Alba.
Q29
Spanish
LOC
Q5432
Francisco Goya
PER
Q81452
House of Alba
Concept
Q3288223
Liria Palace
LOC
Q260128
María Cayetana de Silva, 13th Duchess of Alba
PER
Q655420
Black Duchess
MEDIA
Q1997156
José Álvarez de Toledo
PER
Q3915977
Martín Zapater
PER
Q3937445
The White Duchess
MEDIA
1795-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1795
DATE
1790-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1790
DATE
1794-08-02T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
August 2, 1794
DATE
+192^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
192
NUMBER
+13^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
13
NUMBER
+39^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
39
NUMBER
creator
collection
inception
height
depicts
country of citizenship
country
country
spouse
depicts
spouse