Agustin Esteve y Marques Valencia 1753 - circa 1820 Madrid

The Patriarca de las Indias;
Selva Alegre Collection, Madrid;
Edwards Collection;
His sale, Hôtel Drouot, March 7, 1870, lot 26, for 14,000 francs to Durand Ruel (as "Portrait of Charlotte Corday" by Goya);
Durand-Ruel, Paris;
By whom sold, July 8, 1872, to Louis Gauchez as agent for Baronness Nathaniel de Rothschild;
By descent to her grandson Baron Henri de Rothschild;
By descent to his daughter Madame Adrien Thierry, née Nadine de Rothschild;
Thence by descent to the present owner.

Brussels, Exposition Rétrospective des Bruxelles, 1873, cat. no. 184;
Paris, Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Les Portraits du Siècle, 1885;
Paris, Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Quai Malaquais, Expositions de Tableaux de Maitres Anciens au Profit des Inondés du Midi, March 1, 1887 (as by Goya);
Paris, 1935, Bibliothèque Nationale, cat. no. 344;
Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Cent Portraits de Femmes, 1950, cat. no. 48a, reproduced (as by Goya);
Basel, 1953, cat. no. 5 (as by Goya);
Paris, Musée Jacquemart-André, Francisco de Goya y Lucientes 1746 - 1828, 1961 - 1962, cat. no. 48.

C. Yriarte, Goya, as biographie, les fresques, les toiles, les tapisseries, les eaux-fortes, et les catalogue de l'oeuvre, Paris, 1867, p. 136 (as by Goya);
Z. A. Sanchez, Goya, Madrid 1896, p. 116, cat. no. 338 (as by Goya);
P. Lafond, Goya Y Lucientes, Paris 1902, p. 142, cat. no. 258;
V. Von Loga, Francisco de Goya, Berlin 1924, under section "paintings not seen," p. 207, no. 397 (as by Goya); 
A. L. Mayer, Francisco de Goya, Munich 1923, under section "paintings not seen," p. 206, cat. no. 498 (as by Goya);
Archives Galerie Durand Ruel: Grand Livre, from January 1 1868 to December 31, 1872, volume I, p. 122, engraved by Hedouin;
"Exposition Rétrospective des Bruxelles," in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, vol. 30, Paris 1873, p. 539 and 544, p. 539, reproduced, engraved by E.D. Hedouin (as by Goya);
L'Art, 1873, p. 72;
"Les Portraits du Siècle," in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, vol. 31,  Paris 1885, p. 497, reproduced.
"Exposition de Tableaux de Maitres Anciens au Profit des Inondés du Midi," in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, vol. 35, Paris 1887, Paris 1887, pp. 245, 251 - 252, p. 245, reproduced (as by Goya);
L'Art, 1885, p. 59, engraved by Daniel Mordant;
X. Desparmet Fitz-Gerald, L'oeuvre peint de Goya, catalogue raisonné, 1928 - 1950, vol. II, p. 77, cat. no. 359, reproduced, pl. 283 (as by Goya);
M. S. Soria, Augustin Esteve y Goya, 1957, p. 93, no. 22, fig. 38 (as by Esteve, painted circa 1796 - 1800);
Gaya Nuño, La Peinture Espagnole hors de L'Espagne, 1958, no. 929.

This elegant portrait of a young woman, seated, holding two single roses in her hand, embodies the style that made Esteve so sought after by court society in Madrid at the turn of the nineteenth century.  Indeed, the straight posture of this sitter, her dress of rich and intricate material, and the small prop she holds, recall some of Esteve’s other portraits of the Madrileña, such asthe Portrait of the Marquise of Bajamar, recorded in the Count Contini Collection, Rome, and the young woman seated at right in the painting of Countess of Montijo and her Daughters, recorded in the Alba Collection, Madrid.   Long considered to be a work by Francisco de Goya (see Literature) Portrait of a Young Woman Holding Two Roses, in its silvery-gray tonality and in the intense gaze of the sitter, also reveals the strong influence of that master, whom Esteve assisted in the production of replicas of his most important portraits of King Charles IV and Maria Luisa from 1780 on.        

We are grateful to Dr. Michael Hall for his help in reconstructing the de Rothschild provenance for this picture.