La Maja de Goya ("The Woman of Goya") evokes the sensual world of the artist as seen in an image of his lover. Two of Goya's best known paintings are The Nude Maja (La maja desnuda) and The Clothed Maja (La maja vestida). They depict the same woman in the same pose, naked and clothed, respectively. He painted La maja vestida after outrage in Spanish society over the previous Desnuda. Without a pretense to allegorical or mythological meaning, the painting was "the first totally profane life-size female nude in Western art".[6] He refused to paint clothes on her, and instead created a new painting. The identity of the Majas is uncertain. The most popularly cited subjects are the Duchess of Alba, with whom Goya is thought to have had an affair, and the mistress of Manuel de Godoy, who subsequently owned the paintings. Neither theory has been verified, and it remains as likely that the paintings represent an idealized composite.[7] In 1808 the paintings were seized by Ferdinand VI, and in 1813 the Inquisition confiscated both works as 'obscene'.(from Wikipedia)
