Antonio Porcel was a liberal and associate of Manuel Godoy, Prince of Peace, who was a friend of Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, who in turn brought him in contact with Goya, who lived nearby; the painting is said to have been a gift from the artist in return for hospitality.

A Goya portrait of Antonio Porcel, though much larger and so not a matching piece, was lost in a fire when the Jockey Club in Buenos Aires was destroyed in a riot in 1953.

[1] The half-length portrait depicts a young woman dressed in typical Spanish attire, a white shirt and a black mantilla.

In spite of her "maja" attire, the richness of the textiles and her ladylike appearance give the picture an aristocratic elegance; at this time wealthy Spanish "people of fashion" often wore the styles of lower class urban dandies and their female equivalents, as seen in Goya's famous clothed version of La Maja.

[citation needed] The picture is used in several episodes of the 1967 BBC serialisation of the Forsyte Saga.