The White Duchess 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 Duchess of Alba, 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
María Cayetana de Silva, 13th Duchess of Alba was poisoned (this theory was dramatized in the film "The Naked Maja"). She had no biological issue although she did have an adoptive daughter, known as María de la Luz. After her death, the title Duke of Alba passed to a relative, Carlos Miguel Fitz-James Stuart (1794–1835), who became the 14th Duke of Alba. María Cayetana de Silva, 13th Duchess of Alba María del Pilar Teresa Cayetana de Silva-Álvarez de Toledo y Silva, 13th Duchess of Alba, GE (full name, see infobox; 10 June 1762 – 23 July 1802), was a Spanish aristocrat and a popular subject of the painter