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Artist: Francisco Goya
A woman reclines on a bed in a white gown and a black and gold bolero. Goya painted her between 1800 and 1803, and the Prado holds the canvas today. The sitter is debated, but the Madrid type she embodies is not. This short tour looks at how dress, pose and the painting's unusual scale turn a private figure into a public statement about a distinctly Spanish kind of woman.
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The highest-resolution file we hold, available without payment or an account.1,600 × 800 pixels.
Download highest-resolution imageThe clinging white gown stretched over hips and legs, its silvery highlights and loose loaded brushstrokes showing Goya's handling of fabric and light.
The extended feet at the lower left in small gold-embroidered slippers, which finish the long diagonal of the reclining body and emphasise its full length.
The broad rose-pink sash binding the white gown at the waist, the single warm colour accent dividing the figure and marking the turn of her body.
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A woman reclines on a bed in a white gown and a black and gold bolero. Goya painted her between 1800 and 1803, and the Prado holds the canvas today. The sitter is debated, but the Madrid type she embodies is not. This short tour looks at how dress, pose and the painting's unusual scale turn a private figure into a public statement about a distinctly Spanish kind of woman.
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Explore the researchThe story About 4 minutes to read
Goya painted a single woman lying on a bed. She wears a white gown and a short black jacket trimmed in gold, and she looks out at us steadily. The painting is known as The Clothed Maja, made between 1800 and 1803, and it hangs today in the Museo del Prado. The title tells us she is a maja, a Madrid woman of the lower classes whose dress and confident manner were famous in the city.
The body stretches almost the full width of the canvas, which is nearly two metres across and only about one metre high. Goya placed her on a low bed with pillows behind her, so the figure reads as a long horizontal band, calm and unbroken. Her arms rest behind her head and along her side, and her hands are relaxed. Nothing in the pose suggests work or hurry.
The dress matters as much as the body. A white gown clings closely enough to describe the shape beneath it, while the short black bolero sits open over her shoulders. Gold embroidery catches the light along the jacket and at her waist. The pale green sash and the soft cushions set the figure apart from the dark background. The head is small against the wide body, which makes the face a quiet centre rather than a dramatic one.
The word maja describes a particular Madrid type: a working-class woman whose short jackets, full skirts and forthright manner gave her a distinctive public identity. Goya was not painting a mythological goddess or a society lady in court dress. He gave that popular Madrid type the scale and seriousness usually reserved for grander subjects. The result is a portrait that is also a statement about a specifically Spanish kind of confidence, dressed in clothes ordinary people would recognise.
The exact sitter is not settled. The supplied record names two candidates: María Teresa de Silva, the thirteenth Duchess of Alba, and Josefa de Tudó, the first Countess of Castillo Fiel. A duchess and a countess are both grander than a maja. If either identification were correct, the painting would be playing an aristocratic identity through popular dress. That reading stays open. What the evidence supports is the type, not a fixed name for the woman in the bed.
Look again at the white gown and the gold-trimmed jacket. They are not costume in a theatrical sense; they are the clothes of a maja, worn by a figure Goya painted at nearly life size. That combination is the painting's argument. Goya took a popular Madrid woman, gave her a calm and unapologetic pose, and asked viewers to take her as seriously as any grander portrait. Who she was remains debated. What she represents, a distinctly Spanish and unsubmissive femininity, is clear from what we see.
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Historical claims are linked to the records below. Close looking and interpretation are identified in the passage notes.
Vicente López Portaña. Image source · Public domain
About the artist
30 March 1746 to 16 April 1828
Goya was a Spanish painter and printmaker whose career extended from royal tapestry designs and court portraiture to images of war, repression and unsettling fantasy. Born in Fuendetodos, he trained in Zaragoza and Madrid and became First Painter to Charles IV in 1799. He spent his final years in Bordeaux.
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The painting is catalogued under the title 'The Clothed Maja (La Maja Vestida)' and is attributed to Francisco Goya. The record classifies it as a portrait, which situates it within Goya's portrait practice even though its subject is presented in the dress of a popular Madrid type rather than in the formal attire of a named sitter. The object is an oil on canvas measuring 97 cm in height and 190 cm in width, and it is dated between 1800 and 1803. Because the catalogue date belongs to the object itself, it should be distinguished from later catalogue dates, which record when the work was documented or catalogued rather than when it was made. The canvas is held in the collection of the Museo del Prado, Madrid, and carries the accession number P000741.(Wikimedia Commons: The Clothed Maja, n.d., Title field; Date field; Medium field; Dimensions field; Genre field)
The record lists two possible sitters: María Teresa de Silva, thirteenth Duchess of Alba, and Josefa de Tudó, first Countess of Castillo Fiel, and it states that the exact identity is not resolved in the supplied record. Both candidates hold aristocratic titles, which stands in tension with the painting's presentation of the figure as a maja, a popular Madrid type. That tension is what makes the unresolved sitter question consequential rather than incidental: if either identification were established, the work would involve an aristocratic identity rendered through popular dress, but the evidence supports only the type, not a fixed name for the woman depicted. Any reading of the sitter must therefore remain open and attributed to the record's own qualification.(Wikimedia Commons: The Clothed Maja, n.d., Title field)
The painting is titled 'The Clothed Maja (La Maja Vestida)' and was created by Francisco Goya.(Wikimedia Commons: The Clothed Maja, n.d.)
The painting is dated between 1800 and 1803.(Wikimedia Commons: The Clothed Maja, n.d.)
The painting is an oil on canvas.(Wikimedia Commons: The Clothed Maja, n.d.)
The dimensions of the painting are 97 cm in height and 190 cm in width.(Wikimedia Commons: The Clothed Maja, n.d.)
The painting is classified as a portrait.(Wikimedia Commons: The Clothed Maja, n.d.)
Interpretation
The work is catalogued as The Clothed Maja (La Maja Vestida), painted by Francisco Goya y Lucientes. The record dates it between 1800 and 1803 and describes it as an oil on canvas measuring 97 cm in height and 190 cm in width. It is classified as a portrait and is held in the collection of the Museo del Prado, Madrid, under accession number P000741. These particulars fix the object within a documented museum holding and give the technical and physical frame within which any interpretation must operate. The unusually wide, low format follows from the dimensions themselves; the canvas is roughly twice as wide as it is high, which is consistent with the horizontal disposition of the figure described in the visual account of the painting.(Wikimedia Commons: The Clothed Maja, n.d., Depicted people field)
The depicted figure is a woman reclining on a bed, wearing a white gown and a short black jacket trimmed in gold, looking steadily outward. The pose is calm: her arms rest behind her head and along her side, and her hands are relaxed, with nothing in the attitude suggesting work or hurry. The body stretches across nearly the full width of the canvas, placed on a low bed with pillows behind her, so that the figure reads as a long horizontal band set against a dark background. The head is small relative to the wide body, which makes the face a quiet centre rather than a dramatic one. The pale green sash and the soft cushions separate the figure from the surrounding darkness. Gold embroidery catches the light along the jacket and at the waist, and the white gown clings closely enough to describe the shape beneath it while the short black bolero sits open over her shoulders. These observed features are the primary material on which the title's designation of a maja depends, and they are also the features any attribution of identity or intent must be reconciled with.(Wikimedia Commons: The Clothed Maja, n.d., Depicted people field)
The word maja denotes a particular Madrid type: a working-class woman whose short jackets, full skirts and forthright manner gave her a distinctive public identity in the city. The painting's title therefore carries a social designation, not only a descriptive label. On the evidence of what is visible, Goya did not paint a mythological goddess or a society lady in court dress; he gave the popular Madrid type the scale and seriousness usually reserved for grander subjects. The result has been read as a portrait that is also a statement about a specifically Spanish kind of confidence, dressed in clothes ordinary people would recognise. This reading rests on the correspondence between the painted clothing and a documented category of dress and demeanour, and it treats the title as evidence about the represented social type rather than as proof of the sitter's actual station.(Wikimedia Commons: The Clothed Maja, n.d., Depicted people field)
The exact identity of the sitter is not settled in the supplied record. The record names two candidates for the figure: María Teresa de Silva, 13th Duchess of Alba, and Josefa de Tudó, 1st Countess of Castillo Fiel. Both proposed identifications would place a titled woman inside the dress of a maja, and if either were correct the painting would be playing an aristocratic identity through popular dress, a very different proposition from a portrait of a woman of the popular class. That reading stays open. What the evidence supports is the type, not a fixed name for the woman in the bed, and the disagreement between the two candidates should be reported as an unresolved question rather than resolved by preference. The distinction matters because the two identifications carry different implications for how the clothing, the pose and the address to the viewer are understood.(Wikimedia Commons: The Clothed Maja, n.d., Depicted people field)
A narrow reading can be drawn from the conjunction of the visual evidence and the recorded type: Goya took a popular Madrid woman, gave her a calm and unapologetic pose at nearly life size, and asked viewers to take her as seriously as any grander portrait. The white gown and gold-trimmed jacket are not costume in a theatrical sense but the recognised dress of a maja, and the combination of that dress with the scale and composure of the figure constitutes the painting's argument as the sources describe it. Beyond this, the evidence does not license further synthesis. The record does not establish who the woman was, what the painter privately intended, or how the work was received in its own moment, and the two named candidates remain competing possibilities rather than a resolved answer. Reading the painting as an assertion about a distinctly Spanish and unsubmissive femininity is an interpretation of what is visible; it should be presented as such, attributed to the reading the sources offer, and not promoted into a statement about the maker's intention or the sitter's confirmed rank.(Wikimedia Commons: The Clothed Maja, n.d., Depicted people field)
The source lists possible sitters for the figure as María Teresa de Silva, 13th Duchess of Alba, and Josefa de Tudó, 1st Countess of Castillo Fiel. The exact identity is not resolved in the supplied record.(Wikimedia Commons: The Clothed Maja, n.d.)
The painting known as The Clothed Maja is held in the collection of the Museo del Prado, Madrid, where it carries the accession number P000741. Those two facts, the holding institution and the catalogue number, are the firmest points of the object's documented life in the supplied record, and they matter because they locate the work within a public museum whose numbering systems allow it to be tracked, requested and studied as a specific physical object rather than as a reproduction. The same record that supplies the collection and accession number also supplies the working title and attribution, Francisco de Goya, together with a date range of 1800 to 1803 and a classification as a portrait, so the museum identity is not isolated metadata but the frame within which the painting's authorship, dating and genre are ordinarily stated. The Wikimedia Commons file page from which these details are drawn is annotated as providing object metadata, and its consultation status is recorded as partially consulted; that qualification belongs to the account of how the evidence was gathered and should temper any claim that the record is exhaustive. What the record establishes is therefore a catalogue identity for a canvas in Madrid, not a complete provenance, and no acquisition history, transfer between owners or earlier location is supplied here and none should be inferred.(Wikimedia Commons: The Clothed Maja, n.d., Collection field; Accession number field)
Interpretation
Read together, the collection field and the accession number show how a single institutional record can carry different kinds of authority at once. The Prado holding is a present-tense fact about where the object is; the number P000741 is an administrative fact that makes the object retrievable within that institution. Neither tells us how the painting entered the collection, and the supplied evidence offers no gap to fill. For a research archive the distinction matters because the painting's public visibility at the Prado is the immediate condition under which most viewers encounter it, while the unresolved questions attached to it, including the identity of the sitter, remain attached to an object that is also a catalogued museum holding. The account of the work as a contested portrait and the account of it as P000741 are therefore not competing stories but two layers of the same object's documentary existence, and the documented layer is the one that can be stated without qualification.(Wikimedia Commons: The Clothed Maja, n.d., Collection field; Accession number field)
The painting is held in the collection of the Museo del Prado, Madrid.(Wikimedia Commons: The Clothed Maja, n.d.)
The painting has the accession number P000741 at the Museo del Prado.(Wikimedia Commons: The Clothed Maja, n.d.)
Interpretation
The object at the centre of this research is Francisco Goya's The Clothed Maja (La Maja Vestida), an oil on canvas portrait dated between 1800 and 1803 and held in the Museo del Prado, Madrid, under accession number P000741. The institutional record confirms artist, title, date, medium, dimensions, and collection, and classifies the work as a portrait. It measures 97 cm in height and 190 cm in width, which makes it roughly twice as wide as it is tall and establishes the strongly horizontal format on which every later reading of the figure depends. The record also preserves an unresolved question: the possible sitters it names are María Teresa de Silva, 13th Duchess of Alba, and Josefa de Tudó, 1st Countess of Castillo Fiel, and the exact identity of the woman depicted is not settled in the supplied record. Any account of the painting's meaning therefore has to work with a documented type and a documented form rather than a fixed name, while the sitter debate remains an open qualification rather than a resolved fact of the object's history.(Wikimedia Commons: The Clothed Maja, n.d.)
The only valuation unit supplied for this painting is not a market record at all but a model-generated working insurance range, produced by a working calculation dated 2026-10-16. It sets an estimated value of US$50M to US$200M and states explicitly that the range is broad and intended for manual review only. Its stated basis is the confirmed facts of the object: a Goya oil on canvas, The Clothed Maja (La Maja Vestida), dated between 1800 and 1803, large format at 97 x 190 cm, held at the Museo del Prado, Madrid, accession number P000741, with artist, title, date, medium, dimensions, collection, and accession number confirmed by the Wikimedia Commons institutional record. The unit gives a reasoned account of why the range is so wide: the painting is a museum-held masterpiece with no public sale history and no official appraisal in the supplied excerpts, so the model sets the range conservatively wide to reflect unresolved attribution nuances, the absence of comparables, and the fact that such works are normally not insurable at market-replacement value. Figures are modelled as low six to low nine figures in USD for review and are not tied to any transaction. The unit's own qualification states that this is not an official insurance value, appraisal, auction result, or sale price; that it does not reflect private insurance records, museum valuations, or verified comparable sales; and that no public appraisal or market transaction is claimed. Actual coverage would depend on policy terms, scheduled values, condition, provenance, and professional appraisal, and the unit advises consulting a qualified fine art appraiser or insurer before relying on any figure. Treated as evidence, this unit documents the state of valuation knowledge around the painting rather than a price: it records that the supplied excerpts contain no sale history and no appraisal, and it shows how the confirmed attribution, date, medium, dimensions, collection, and accession number function as the load-bearing facts on which even a hypothetical figure has to rest.(Wikimedia Commons: The Clothed Maja, n.d.)
Working estimate
Calculated working insurance estimate, not a sale price: Estimated value: US$50M to US$200M Recorded date: Working calculation, generated 2026-10-16. Methodology: Broad working insurance range calculated for manual review only. Basis: confirmed Francisco Goya oil on canvas painting, The Clothed Maja (La Maja Vestida), dated between 1800 and 1803, large format (97 x 190 cm), held at the Museo del Prado, Madrid, accession number P000741. The Wikimedia Commons institutional record confirms artist, title, date, medium, dimensions, collection, and accession number. As a museum-held masterpiece with no public sale history or official appraisal in the supplied excerpts, the range is set conservatively wide to reflect unresolved attribution nuances, the absence of comparables, and the fact that such works are normally not insurable at market-replacement value. Figures are modelled as low six to low nine figures in USD for review and are not tied to any transaction. Qualification: This is a model-generated working insurance range for manual review only. It is not an official insurance value, appraisal, auction result, or sale price. It does not reflect private insurance records, museum valuations, or verified comparable sales. No public appraisal or market transaction is claimed. Actual insurance coverage would depend on policy terms, scheduled values, condition, provenance, and professional appraisal. Consult a qualified fine art appraiser or insurer before relying on any figure.(Wikimedia Commons: The Clothed Maja, n.d.)
Further reading
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Kodansha International
Recorded subjects include catalogues raisonnés, Museo del Prado, Spanish Painting, and human beings in art, which point to object-focused Goya scholarship relevant to a Prado easel painting such as The Clothed Maja.
ISBN 0870110837
City of Manchester Cultural Services
Recorded subjects include Painting, Painting, Spanish, Portraits, 18th century, 19th century, and museum exhibition contexts, indicating a survey of Goya paintings that can support art-historical comparison for The Clothed Maja.
ISBN 0901673242
Bibliography
References are arranged by author or organisation, with links to the original publications. Where no publication date is recorded, n.d. means no date.
Source notes updated .
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Book
Goya. Kodansha International.
Recorded subjects include catalogues raisonnés, Museo del Prado, Spanish Painting, and human beings in art, which point to object-focused Goya scholarship relevant to a Prado easel painting such as The Clothed Maja.
Book
Francisco de Goya: prints in the collection of Manchester City Art Galleries, City Art Gallery, Mosley Street, Manchester, 14 September-1 December. City of Manchester Cultural Services.
Recorded subjects include Painting, Painting, Spanish, Portraits, 18th century, 19th century, and museum exhibition contexts, indicating a survey of Goya paintings that can support art-historical comparison for The Clothed Maja.
Secondary · About this artwork
Wikimedia Commons: The Clothed Maja (n.d.). Wikimedia Commons.
Wikimedia Commons file page for 'The Clothed Maja', providing object metadata including artist, title, date, medium, dimensions, collection, accession number, and possible sitters.
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