La maja desnuda

Curatorial Overview

“The Naked Maja or The Nude Maja is an oil-on-canvas painting made around 1797–1800 by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya, and has been in the Museo del Prado in Madrid since 1901. It portrays a nude woman reclining on a bed of pillows, and was probably commissioned by Manuel Godoy, to hang in his private collection in a separate cabinet reserved for nude paintings. Goya created a pendant of the same woman identically posed, but clothed, known today as La maja vestida, also in the Prado, and usually hung next to La maja desnuda. The subject is identified as a maja or fashionable lower-class Madrid woman, based on her costume in La maja vestida.”