Hasta la muerte, Plate 55 from: Los Caprichos

‘The Ayala text of 1799-1803 calls the subject of this plate ‘The Old Duchess of Osuna’. The Madrid Biblioteca Nacional text echoes this idea: ‘Foolish women will remain so until their death. This is certainly the Duchess (of Osuna)...’. These two texts are rather surprising in view of what are known to have been the friendly relations between Goya and the Osunas at the time of the Caprichos. The other suggested subject of this plate has been the Queen Maria-Luisa. She, however, was only forty-eight years old in 1799. On the other hand, in Goya's original preparatory drawing for this print, the woman before the mirror seems younger than in the print In any case, the general subject here is the age-old tradition of the allegory of Vanity. This could have been a direct reference to the eventual effect of fading beauty and the coquettish ways of the Queen in her relationship with her young lover, the ‘Prince of Peace’, Manuel Godoy.’

R. S. Johnson, Francisco Goya, Los Caprichos, R.S. Johnson Fine Art, Chicago, 1992, p. 136.