The Portrait That Doesn’t Exist

In the early 19th century, Goya — then the official court painter to the Spanish king — received a mysterious commission. The model’s name remains unknown, but contemporary accounts describe her as a noblewoman whose fate was as enigmatic as the painting itself. Some historians suggest it may have been Josefa Tudó, mistress of the powerful Spanish statesman Manuel Godoy, or even Catherine of Bourbon, sister to King Charles IV.

The portrait was painted in secret, and according to descriptions, it was unusual: Goya portrayed the woman with haunting realism and added something to her gaze that, according to rumors, unsettled all who looked at it. A few months after its completion, the painting vanished — its trail lost by the late 1810s.

Traces in the Dark

After Goya’s death, legends of the painting grew. In the mid-19th century, French collector Claude-Marie Duval claimed to have purchased a Goya portrait but soon sold it, saying “the eyes in it seemed to follow me in the dark.” The painting disappeared again. In 1903, the newspaper El Imparcial published a note about a mysterious portrait allegedly kept in a private aristocratic collection in Madrid — but this lead also vanished a few years later.

A Phantom Among Masterpieces

In 1995, restorers at the Prado Museum examined Goya’s portrait of María Teresa of Bourbon and discovered the outline of another figure beneath the top layer of paint — one that strikingly resembled descriptions of the "Ghost Portrait." It is possible that Goya himself destroyed the original, repainting it on a new canvas.

Today, this portrait remains one of the most intriguing enigmas in the art world. It may still lie hidden in a private collection — or may be lost forever. But for those who believe in the supernatural, Goya may have poured more than paint and talent into it — perhaps even the soul of the one he painted.