La maja desnuda

Created between 1797 and 1800, La maja desnuda was likely commissioned by Prime Minister Manuel Godoy for a private cabinet dedicated to nude paintings. The work first appears in a 1800 inventory of Godoy's collection, where it was displayed alongside its pendant, La maja vestida. In 1808, Spanish Inquisition investigators discovered the painting in Godoy's residence, labeling it indecent and confiscating it.

Following Godoy's fall, the Inquisition summoned Goya in 1815 to explain the commission, though he avoided prosecution by citing artistic tradition. The painting remained in storage at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando until 1901, when it entered the Museo del Prado.

La maja desnuda is held in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, where it has been part of the permanent collection since 1901. Prior to this transfer, the work was sequestered by the Spanish Inquisition and subsequently kept in the storage magazines of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid. The painting was originally recorded in 1800 within the private collection of Prime Minister Manuel Godoy, in a cabinet reserved for nude paintings, and was confiscated from him in 1808.

The work was first publicly exhibited around 1900, and in 1930 the Spanish Postal Authority issued a set of four postage stamps featuring the painting, which sparked international protest.

La maja desnuda occupies a pivotal place in European art as one of the first large-scale female nudes to reject mythological framing, depicting instead a contemporary Spanish woman in a frank, full-frontal pose. Its bold gaze and unidealized realism broke decisively with academic conventions epitomized by Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus, which shows only the model’s back. The Inquisition’s 1808 investigation of Manuel Godoy’s cabinet, where the work was hidden, underscored its transgressive status, yet Goya avoided prosecution by invoking precedents from Titian and Velázquez, whose nudes had long been tolerated in Spain.

Scholarship emphasizes the painting’s secular character and its challenge to the allegorical alibi that had justified earlier nudes. Art historians such as Fred Licht and Sabine Poeschel describe it as the first fully profane, life-size female nude in Western art, noting the unprecedented depiction of pubic hair without negative connotation. Its pendant La maja vestida, likely added later, frames the nude as a deliberate visual provocation rather than an emblem of mythological virtue.

La maja desnuda is recognized as one of the first Western artworks to depict female pubic hair without mythological allegory or negative connotations. Following its confiscation by the Inquisition in 1808, the painting remained hidden in storage for nearly a century, largely unknown to the public until its presentation around 1900. This prolonged secrecy distinguishes its historical trajectory from later works it influenced, such as Édouard Manet's Olympia, which some scholars argue alludes to Goya's masterpiece.

The work's cultural legacy expanded in the 20th century through various media. The image appeared on Spanish postage stamps in 1930, sparking protests from Catholic groups and foreign nations. The painting also inspired a 1959 novel by Samuel Edwards and a subsequent international film adaptation, cementing its status beyond the realm of fine art.

Created circa 1797–1800, this oil-on-canvas work by Francisco de Goya depicts a reclining female figure on a cushion-laden surface. The painting has been part of the Museo del Prado’s collection in Madrid since the early twentieth century, arriving there in 1901.