Alida Christina Assink by Jan Adam Kruseman, 1833.

Collection: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Portrait of María Tomasa Palafox (1780-1835), Marchioness of Villafranca, dressed in a white Empire-style gown, seated in an armchair upholstered in red damask silk, her feet resting on a cushion, painting a portrait of her husband, Francisco de Borja Álvarez de Toledo y Gonzaga , 11th Marquis of Villafranca . The Marchioness received an enlightened education from her mother, the Countess of Montijo . She was an academician of merit at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid , a cultured woman, a great lover of the arts, and an amateur painter. Her gaze is directed away from the composition, perhaps at the subject of her painting, her husband, who is depicted in the uniform of a line infantry officer. To her right, on a small table, rests her palette with paints, some brushes, and a small metal bowl. The Marquis also looks at his wife from his own portrait, in a game of glances that Goya consciously used, perhaps to reflect the great love that, according to contemporary sources, the couple professed for each other.

Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY, United States

Born to prominent Spanish nobility, Eugénie was educated in France, Spain, and England. As Empress, she used her influence to champion "authoritarian and clerical policies"; her involvement in politics earned her much criticism from contemporaries. Napoléon and Eugénie had one child together, Louis-Napoléon, Prince Imperial (1856–1879). After the fall of the Empire, the three lived in exile in England; Eugénie outlived both her husband and son and spent the remainder of her life working to commemorate their memories and the memory of the Second French Empire.

Broad, slashing strokes give powerful shape to this defiant female figure standing with parted legs, a pose more athletic - even pugilistic - than seductive. Her oppositional posturing matched the painter’s contrary aesthetic sensibilities. The Realist painter Henri sought a provocative and timely subject in Salome, the biblical figure who served as her mother’s dutiful pawn in facilitating King Herod’s assassination of John the Baptist. By the late nineteenth century Salome had evolved into a far more aggressive and decadent creature, as witnessed in Oscar Wilde’s notorious play of 1891. That Henri adopted the theme in 1909 suggests his desire to capitalize on Salome’s high currency for controversy, which had been confirmed by the New York Metropolitan Opera’s scandal-provoking performance of Richard Strauss’s Salome (based on Wilde’s play) in 1907. The gleam of amusement that enhances Salome’s haughty expression slyly evokes her complicity in constructing Henri’s own reputation as a radical painter.

Margherita Sparapani Gentili Boccapadule by Laurent Pecheux, 1777.