She is dressed as a 'maja', as Spanish ladies of fashion often did in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Goya's portrait of her husband, Don Antonio de Porcel, was dated 1806 (formerly in the Jockey Club, Buenos Aires).

The painting is almost certainly identifiable with a portrait chosen by Goya for exhibition at the Real Academia de San Fernando in Madrid in 1805. X-ray photographs reveal that it is painted over a portrait of a man in uniform.