Agustin Esteve y Marques Valencia 1753 - circa 1820 Madrid

Conde de Montijo, Madrid;
Camille Groult sale, Paris, Galerie Charpentier, March 20, 1953 (as by Goya);
Maurice Hector Loncle, Paris;
Diana Kreuger, Geneva.

C. Yriarte, Goya, as biographie, les fresques, les toiles, les tapisseries, les eaux-fortes et le catalogue de l'oeuvre, Paris 1867, p. 135 (with incorrect dimensions), as "la comtesse de Montijo" (as by Goya);
Conde de la Vinaza, Goya, su tiempo, su vida, sus obras, Madrid 1887, p. 269, no. CXL, [repeating the incorrect dimensions and confusion with no. 259, Paris, belonging to M.C, G...] (as by Goya);
A. Sanchex, Goya, Madrid 1896, no. 226, [repeating the incorrect dimensions];
V. van Longa, Goya, Berlin 1903, no. 279, [repeating the incorrect dimensions and confusion with no. 386, "Paris collection particulière"] (as by Goya);
A.F. Calvert, Goya, London 1908, p. 137, no. 182 (as by Goya);
J. Villegas, Retratos de mujeres por Goya, Madrid 1909, reproduced plate 14 (as by Goya);
A.L. Mayer, Francisco de Goya, Munich 1923, no. 353 (as by Goya);
Don F. Zapater y Gomez, Goya, Madrid 1924, p. 1, 159 (as by Goya);
M.S. Soria, "Agustin Esteve and Goya", in Art Bulletin, xxv, 3 (1943), p. 253, no. 71, p. 262, no. 45 (as by Esteve);
X. Desparmet Fitz-Gerald, L'oeuvre peint de Goya, catalogue raisonné, Paris 1928-1950, vol. 2, no. 421, reproduced plate 339 (per M. Soria as an incorrect sitter, confusing ...);
M.S. Soria, Agustin Esteve and Goya, Valencia, 1957, p. 65, no. 72, p. 111, cat. no. 71 (as by Esteve).

This charming painting of a young lady typifies the elegant portrait style that had made Esteve sought after by the Madrid elite.  Indeed, amongst his earliest patrons were the Dukes of Osuna and Alba, and commissions from other aristocratic families soon followed.   The present picture is clearly influenced by the portraits of Francisco de Goya, whom Esteve assisted in the production of replicas of his more important portraits from 1780 on; in fact this Portrait of a Young Woman was for many years considered to be a work of Goya himself, and has been widely published as such.   

The painting depicts a young woman, apparently in her late teens or early twenties.  Her dress suggests a date between 1795-1800; a similar costume appears in other portraits of around this date, such as Goya’s Portrait of the Duchess of Alba, dated 1795.  Undoubtedly because of its provenance (see below), the painting was said at one point to represent the Condesa de Montijo, and subsequently it was said to be the Condesa de Miranda del Castanar¹.

1 The Condesa de Montijo suggested was presumably the half Spanish, half Scottish mother of the Empress Eugénie.