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
Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, 18th Duchess of Alba Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, 18th Duchess of Alba María del Rosario Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart y Silva, 18th Duchess of Alba, GE, OIC, OSH, DOA, OAX, OSG, OPC (28 March 1926 – 20 November 2014), was head of the House of Alba and the third woman to hold the dukedom of Alba in her own right. Born at Liria Palace on 28 March 1926, she was the only child of the 17th Duke of Alba (a prominent Spanish politician and diplomat during the 1930s and 1940s) by his wife, María del Rosario de Silva y Gurtubay, 9th Marchioness of San Vicente del