Lecture: Painter and Patrons: Goya's Portrait of Don Pedro, Duque de Osuna

Dr. Susan Grace Galassi, Senior Curator, The Frick Collection
December 7, 2013

Major figures in the Spanish Enlightenment, Don Pedro de Alcántara Téllez-Girón y Pacheco, the 9th Duque de Osuna (1755–1807), and his wife, Doña María Josefa de la Soledad Alfonso-Pimentel y Téllez-Girón, Condesa-Duquesa de Benavente y Osuna (1752–1834), promoted liberal causes in politics, science, agriculture and industry and were equally progressive in their taste in art. From 1785 to the end of the century, they commissioned portraits of themselves and their children as well as some of the Goya’s most imaginative genre scenes, and they amassed a large collection of his prints. Galassi explores the Frick portrait, carried out at the end of the century, in the context of the long, mutually beneficial relationship between Goya and his primary patrons of the time.