The Black Duchess create a painting for her, which he did. This painting is the "Portrait of the Duchess of Alba", painted at her request. The Black Duchess The Black Duchess (also Mourning Portrait of the Duchess of Alba or simply Portrait of the Duchess of Alba) is a 1797 oil-on-canvas painting by Spanish painter Francisco Goya. The Duchess in the painting is María Cayetana de Silva, 13th Duchess of Alba, then 35 years old. It is a companion piece to the more chaste "The White Duchess", completed two years earlier. In this work, de Silva is dressed in low cut "Maja" clothing.
Claire de Duras Claire de Duras Claire, Duchess of Duras (née de Kersaint; 1777–1828) was a French writer best known for her 1823 novel called "Ourika", which examines issues of racial and sexual equality, and which inspired the 1969 John Fowles novel "The French Lieutenant's Woman". Claire de Duras left her native France for London during the French Revolution in 1789, and returned to France in 1808 as the Duchess of Duras. She maintained a famous literary salon in post-Revolutionary Paris and was the close friend of Chateaubriand, who she had met while in exile in London, and who helped her to publish