The Clothed Maja

The Clothed Maja (La maja vestida) is an oil-on-canvas painting by Francisco Goya, dated by the Museo del Prado to between 1800 and 1807, and the clothed companion of his Nude Maja; both hang side by side in the Prado, Madrid.

The two pictures first appear in 1808, in the inventory of the property of the royal favourite Manuel Godoy drawn up by Frédéric Quilliet, an agent of Joseph Bonaparte. In the 1813 inventory of Godoy's goods seized by Ferdinand VII they are called "gypsies" rather than majas. Who commissioned them, whether they were meant as a pair, and who the sitter was are all unknown. Legend makes her the Duchess of Alba, a friend of Goya's; because Godoy was the first owner, many scholars favour his mistress Pepita Tudó. The Prado notes that every inventory keeps her anonymous, and the clothed version may have been painted some years after the nude.

The maja lies on a green divan partly covered with a white spread and pillows, legs slightly bent, arms folded behind her head, looking straight out. Her thin, transparent dress is tied with a pink silk sash, and she wears a short yellow jacket with black decoration and pointed shoes of the same colour. A reddish object under her hip has been read as the hilt of a dagger or as a closed fan. Goya painted this version more freely than the nude, with loose, thick strokes for the fabric and more care spent on the face and dark curls. The Fundación Goya en Aragón compares the pose with his portrait of the Marchioness of Santa Cruz of 1805.

The canvas, about 95 × 190 cm, was kept at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando from 1808 to 1813, was then seized by the Inquisition as obscene, and returned to the academy from 1836 until it entered the Prado in 1901.