Who is painter of duchess

She looks directly at the viewer with dark Bette Davis eyes, rosy lips, bushy eyebrows and a large beauty mark considered a symbol of a passionate nature next to her right eye. Like many Goya portraits, the face is finely executed and stands out from the more freely painted style of her surroundings and dress. This style was considered fashionable, daring and sexy when worn by an aristocrat; all adjectives that well suited the duchess.

She was also a leading figure of a faction that promoted the traditions of Old Spain in opposition to the popularity of the ideas and fashions of the French Enlightenment and Revolution in Spanish society. Were they lovers? She was 35, in mourning; Goya was 51, deaf, often saturnine and in poor health. The duchess remained a beauty; Goya was both brilliant and successful. She had just buried a husband she didn't love and was surely not willing to be tied down again straight away, at least not by an ugly, deaf, year-old man of lowly birth.

Perhaps the whole thing was just a game for her right from the start - a game on the one hand with the artist genius, and on the other with conventions. For her an affair, for him a catastrophe, both as a man and as a social climber who wanted to rise to the top. Toggle navigation Francisco Goya. Click Image to view detail. The Third of May, The Second of May, The Colossus. The Snowstorm.

Clothed Maja. Duchess of Alba. In all probability, the condition would have happened later in life so she may even have been a beauty before the condition set in.

Aside from the effect on her looks, she may have suffered no more than headaches and a damaged pituitary gland, said Baum. Baum is also convinced that the sitter would have been "a very powerful woman and may even have been a real duchess". He said: "I reckon the artist was paid a princely sum to do it because who is going to buy a painting like that? Artists had to make a living. I think the painting is probably quite a close likeness. It remains one of Baum's favourites.

The other research is important in an art historical context. Experts have often written about how similar the Massys painting is to two Leonardesque drawings that are supposed to reflect a lost original by Leonardo from about The assumption has been that Massys imitated the works but the National Gallery research suggests that this was not the case.

Susan Foister, curator of Renaissance Faces, said: "We can now say with confidence that Leonardo - or, at least, one of his followers - copied Massys's wonderful painting, not the other way around.

This is a very exciting discovery.