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
Spanish succession issue of 1789 enormously and might suggests distinct interpretations. One group of works sort of imply that in 1789 the succession law was effectively changed. There are authors who claim that Carlos IV decreed the Pragmatic Sanction, though he kept it secret; others tend to agree vaguely that the 1713 law was effectively altered in 1789, though the decision was not published. Another group of works is fathered by students who wrote highly ambiguous paragraphs; some note that the 1713 law was indeed changed in 1789, but the decision was put into effect in 1830, some point that the 1713 law "was modified