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This picture is considered to be one of Goya's finest female portraits.
Maria Rita Barrenechea y Morante, born in about 1700, married Count del Carpio in November 1775; she died in 1795, and perhaps it is the approach of death which stamps such anxiety on the feverish, languid face, with its great dark eyes. The slender silhouette seems to materialize like a ghost in front of the plain background; in this simple picture, free of all rhetorical devices and exercising a curious fascination by reason of this very simplicity, one finds the strange 'supernatural' quality common to all the masterpieces of Spanish painting. The sylph-like body is only the fleshly covering of a burning spirit. We know that the Countess del Carpio was a cultivated woman; she wrote some poetry which was printed atjaen in 1783.
The pose is a curious one; the position of the feet, one at right angles to the other, suggests that she is about to perform a dance step, but this is belied by the calm and relaxed position of the crossed hands with the fan.
The marquise, mature in years, stands before us wearing a serious expression - Goya's women do not smile - and in a very proud pose. There is nothing in the background to distract attention away from her. With the exception of the face, mantilla and pink bow, the palette is sombre. A masterpiece of Goya's ascetic portraiture.
This picture is sometimes called the 'Marquesa de la Solana'; the Count del Carpio only inherited this title a few months before his wife's death. This portrait is usually considered to belong to Goya's 'grey' period, just before the illness (1792) which made him deaf and gave his art a more pathetic quality. This picture is a subtle harmony of greys and black, with a single note of colour — the pink ribbon rosette in the woman's hair.
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