About the Artwork
Goya, a powerful Spanish portraitist, shows us an alert, personable, and intelligent woman, poised in her chair. X-rays reveal that Doña Amalia was originally painted wearing a brightly colored embroidered dress and with roses affixed to her mantilla. When her father died eight years later, the artist was asked to repaint her clothes to show her in the black garb of mourning.
Dona Amalia Bonells de Costa
ca. 1805
Francisco Goya
1746-1828
Spanish
Unknown
Oil on canvas
Overall: 34 3/8 × 25 3/4 inches (87.3 × 65.4 cm) Framed: 43 × 34 × 2 7/8 inches (109.2 × 86.4 × 7.3 cm)
Paintings
European Painting
Founders Society Purchase, Ralph Harman Booth Bequest Fund
41.80
This work is in the public domain.
Markings
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Provenance
Don José Costa and Doña Amalia Bonells de Costa (Madrid, Spain)
by descent to their son, José de Costa y Bonells and Doña Antonia Bayo de Costa (Madrid, Spain)
until 1924, by descent to his niece, Doña Matilde Quesada y Bayo, later Condesa de Gondomar (Madrid, Spain)
(Fine Arts Company, Lucerne, Switzerland)
Count Wedel Jesleberg [Jelleby or Jelleberg] (Oslo, Norway)
Collection Tietjen (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
by 1937-1941, (Arnold Seligmann, Rey & Co., New York, New York, USA)
1941-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
For more information on provenance and its important function in the museum, please visit:
Provenance pageExhibition History
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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.
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Calvert, A.F. Goya, An Account of His Life and Works. London, 1908, pl. 164.
Beruete y Moret, A. de. Goya, pintor de retratos, vol. 1. Madrid, 1922, p. 208, no. 118.
Beruete y Moret, A. de. Goya as Portrait Painter. Selwyn Brinton, trans. London, 1922, vol. 1, p. 207, no. 118.
Mayer, A.L. Francisco de Goya. Munich, 1923, p. 207, no. 511.
Mayer, A.L. Francisco de Goya. R. West, trans. London and Toronto, 1924, p. 172, no. 511.
Calleja, R. Colección de 449 reproducciones de cuadros de Goya, precedido de un epistolario por D. Francisco Zapater y Gómez en 1868. Madrid, 1924, no.104.
Mayer, A.L., "Francisco de Goya." Pantheon 1 (April 1928): p. 195 (ill.).
Heil, W. Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Prints by Francisco Goya (1746-1828). Exh. cat., California Palace of the Legion of Honor. San Francisco, 1937, p. 31, cat. 21. [lent by Arnold Seligmann, Rey & Co.]
Paintings of Women from the Fifteenth to the Twentieth Century. Exh. cat., Art Gallery of Toronto. Toronto, 1938, p. 9, cat. 28.
Exhibition of Spanish Art. Dallas Museum of Art. Dallas, 1939, no. 3 (ill.). [lent by Arnold Seligmann, Rey & Co.]
Heil, W. Golden Gate International Exposition. Exh. cat., Palace of Fine Arts. San Francisco, 1940, p. 11, no. 141.
Gudiol, J.R. "Spain's Goya." Art News 40, no. 1 (February 1941): p. 9.
Richardson, E.P. "The Condesa de Gondomar by Goya." Bulletin of the DIA 21, no. 2 (November 1941): p. 10-12 (cover ill.).
Catton Rich, D. The Art of Goya. Exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago. Chicago, 1941, cat. 78.
Guidol, J. Spanish Painting. Exh. cat., Toledo Museum of Art. Toledo, 1941, p. xv, cat. 95 (ill.). [lent by Arnold Seligmann, Rey & Co.]
Paintings and Sculptures Illustrated: Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1943, p. 166.
Richardson, E.P., ed. Detroit Institute of Arts Catalogue of Paintings. Detroit, 1944, p. 54, no. 545.
Lassaigne, J. La peinture espagnole. Geneva, 1948, p. 68.
Masterpieces of Painting and Sculpture from the Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1949, p. 175.
Desparmet Fitz-Gerald, X. L'Oeuvre peint de Goya. Paris, 1950, vol. 2, p. 210, no. 499.
López-Rey, J. Loan Exhibition of Goya. Exh. cat., Wildenstein & Co. New York, 1950, no. 24.
Martin-Méry, G. Goya. Exh. cat., Museo del Prado and Musée des Beaux-Arts. Madrid and Bordeaux, 1951, no. 25 (French no. 27) (cover ill.).
Laskin Jr., M., E. Ster, C. Wengert. Five Centuries of Spanish Painting. Exh. cat., Milwaukee Art Institute. Milwaukee1952, no. 31.
Old Masters From American Collections. Exh. cat., Newark Museum. Newark, 1955, cat. 20.
Poland, R. Goya, Zurbarán and Spanish Primitives. Exh. cat, Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts and Atlanta Art Association Galleries. Syracuse and Atlanta, 1957, no. 38.
Domergue, J.-G. Goya. Musée Jacquemart-André. Paris, 1961, no. 81. [dated 1816.]
Bloch, V. "Goya in Paris." Pantheon 20, no. 3 (May-June 1962): pp. 180-181.
Carter, D.G. and W.D. Peat. El Greco to Goya. Exh. cat., John Herron Museum of Art and Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design. Indianapolis and Providence, 1963, no. 33.
Gué-Trapier, E. du. Goya and His Sitters. New York, 1964, p. 28.
Sales, X. de. "Los retratos de la familia Costa." Archivo Español de Arte 38, no. 149 (1965): pp. 64-65.
Gassier, P. and J. Wilson, J. Vie et oeuvre de Francisco Goya. Paris, 1970, p. 253, no. 894, (ill.) p. 262.
Gudiol, J. Goya 1746-1828. Barcelona 1971, vol. 1, p. 308, no. 523; (ill.) vol. 3, no. 827-828.
Gudiol, J. Goya 1746-1828. New York, 1971, no. 523.
De Angelis, R. L'opera pittorica completa di Goya. Milan, 1974, no. 554 (ill.).
Exhibition of Pictures From Museums of the United States of America. Exh. cat., The Hermitage. Leningrad, 1976, p. 10 (ill.).
Chefs d'Oeuvre de Musées des États-Unis: de Giorgione à Picasso. Exh. cat., Musée Marmottan. Paris, 1976, cat. 22 (ill.).
Dallas, Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University, "Goya and the Art of His Time," 1982-83, p. 64, no. I.12 (ill.). (cat. compiled by E.J. Sullivan).
Sullivan, E.J. "Goya's Two Portraits of Amalia Bonells de Costa." Arts Magazine 57, no. 5 (1983): pp. 78-81 (ill.).
Masterpieces from The Detroit Institute of Arts. Exh. cat., Bunkamura Museum of Art, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, and Museum of Modern Art. Tokyo, Kyoto, Ibaraki, 1989, pp. 79, 215-216, cat. 47 (ill.).
Goya La Imagen de la Mujer. Exh. cat, Museo del Prado and National Gallery of Art. Madrid and Washington, D.C., 2001, pp. 278-279, cat. 78 (ill.).
Rose-de-Viejo, I. "Madrid and Washington Goya." Burlington Magazine 144, no. 1186 (January 2002) pp. 43-55, p. 54.
Goya. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional de Arte. Mexico City, 2005, no. 25, pp. 290-291, (ill.). p. 108. [entry by Janis A. Tomlinson.]
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Credit Line for Reproduction
Francisco Goya, Dona Amalia Bonells de Costa, ca. 1805, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, Ralph Harman Booth Bequest Fund, 41.80.
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