MADRID.- These investigations, directed by Manuela Mena and in which German art historian Gudrun Mühle-Maurer has collaborated, have been compiled in the book “The Duchess of Alba, Goya´s “Muse”. The Myth and the Story”, published by El Viso and presented yesterday at the Prado Museum by Miguel Zugaza.

The museum director remembered that since the exhibit “ From El Greco to Picasso” inaugurated in October 2004 and in which both pictures of the Duchess made by Goya, in black and in white, were reunited for the first time. He asked the curator for an essay. “It was an extraordinary occasion to compare both works of art from different points of view and to obtain better knowledge of two of the most important paintings made by the artist”.

The result, an ample and attractive book, “has surpassed expectations” and allows, according to the director, "to take to a more rigorous and real the mythical relation about Goya and the Duchess of Alba”, which has been kept alive exclusively for romantic relations, without a documented support.

The idea of the relationship and union between both “is something normal and to me it always was. The books my teachers wrote the idea that this relationship was real was transmitted as normal”, commented Manuela Mena who recognized that when she confronted the moment to write the essay which had been commissioned by the museum director “didn´t see it clear. Between the person in the portrait and the painter there was no apparent sentimental relationship”.

The Duchess of Alba´s status had an important role in both paintings “her high situation and the distance with the painter was very large”. At this point and with the collaboration of Gudrun Mühle-Maurer, a more profound investigation started in which an unpublished letter from the archives pertaining to José María Cervello, that were stored at the Prado.

In this letter sent to his half-brother and cousin Carlos Pignatelli, the Duchess showed her sadness and pain alter the death of the Duke, stated Manuela Mena for whom the figure of Goya inside the Duchess´ world was at the same level as other members of the court such as the librarian, the doctor or the majordomo. “It is a level he is trying to jump, but not as a lover, but as an artist”.

The same as poets, especially Meléndez Valdés, who dedicated poems to her, Goya elevated himself as a painter of the court and dedicated her highness portraits in which he attempted to “bring out the best in her, attractive, spectacular and full of power. I believe he was not in love with her”.

In the portrait were the Duchess is dressed in white. Probably destined to her Moncloa Palace, her enormous power is exhibited. “The Duchess points her finger at her land, which were limited with the King´s”, said the curator for whom in the portrait were she is dressed in black “Goya shows us a widowed Duchess with her military regalia”.