Pepita Tudo, the model for Goya’s Majas
In the collection of the Fundación Lazaro Galdeano there is a miniature of Doña Josefa Tudo y Catalá, Countess of Castillo Fiel, dowager Princess of la Paz y de Bassano, dowager Duchess of la Alcudia..... in short, first the mistress and subsequently the wife of Manuel Godoy, who was the favourite of Queen Maria Luisa, the wife of Charles IV of Spain.
The tiny miniature is painted in gouache on marble and measures 56 x 47 mm. It is number 3799 in the inventory and is attributed to Guillermo Ducker, the Dutch miniaturist who was active in Madrid, and was recorded as having been painted between 1799 and 1805 (the time from which the Majas themselves date).
This miniature provides graphic proof of the relation between this lady and the model used by Goya for his Majas. Even making allowances for the different materials and sizes in which these works were executed, and the different styles of both artists, a look at these two images leaves the viewer in no doubt.
Evidence mentioning the possibility that this lady was the model for Goya’s canvasses has been ignored by the general public, who have preferred to continue believing the myth that it was Maria Teresa de Silva, the duchess of Alba who posed as the model for these works. This contradicts Pedro de Madrazo's study of the Majas in a catalogue commissioned by the San Fernando Academy in 1870, in which he recognised Pepita Tudo as the model.
On 17 April 1945, at the request of Don Luis Martínez de Irujo, the remains of the Duchess were exhumed and subsequently autopsied by doctors Pérez de Pepinto, Blanco Soler and Pigal Pascual, in order to determine whether the cause of her death was due to poison. It was discovered that she died due to a meningoencephalitis of tubercular origin, and that in the last years of her life her appearance was much deteriorated by the severe spinal curvature she suffered.
On 7 September 1869, Josefa Tudo, who lived in the Calle Fuencarral, died at the age of 90 as the result of a domestic accident, and her remains lie in niche number 110, gallery number 4, courtyard 4 in the church of the Purísima Concepción, in the Cemetery of the Cofradía Sacramental de San Isidro in Madrid. May Goya’s Maja rest in peace.
