Antonia Zárate

Zárate was born Antonia de Aguirre y Murguía, and her birth name reveals her family's Basque origins.

She was the daughter of the actor Pedro de Zárate Valdés, director of a company which was performing "in the lands of Aragón" at the time of her birth[1] She seems to have arrived in Cadiz at the end of the 18th century.

She is mentioned in 1797 as being in Madrid with Rita Luna and Isidoro Máiquez in Luis Navarro's company, contracted to the Coliseo de la Cruz.

She was still there in the 1801-02 season, mentioned as a 'matron of serious character' and a year after that she is recorded as working at the Teatro de los Caños del Peral as part of the opera and verse company led by Máiquez, Antonia Prado and other major Spanish actors of the period.

Zárate was a friend of Francisco Goya, who painted her in 1805 (the work is now in the National Gallery of Ireland) and possibly again in 1810-11.