art" by Prime Minister Manuel de Godoy, Duke of Alcúdia in 1800, when they were hung in a private room reserved for nude paintings, alongside such works as Velázquez's Rokeby Venus. Godoy retained the picture for six years before it was discovered by investigators for the Spanish Inquisition in 1808, along with his other "questionable pictures". Godoy and the curator of his collection, Don Francisco de Garivay, were brought before a tribunal and forced to reveal the artists behind the confiscated art works which were "so indecent and prejudicial to the public good." The controversy was populist and driven by a political motive, following a mob gathering demanding Godoy's removal as Prime Minister. In the fallout, Goya was named and summoned on a charge of moral depravity. As Godoy had only been found in possession of the painting, Goya was asked to identify why "he did them", and also "at whose request, and what attention guided him." His answers do not survive, but it is known that the Director of Confiscations accepted that Goya had followed and emulated Titian's Danaë series and Velázquez's Rokeby Venus; two painters, and their works, admired by the court and church, including their nudes, and the Inquisition had previously found nothing objectionable in the Rokeby Venus. Goya escaped prosecution when the tribunal accepted that he was following in a tradition, and emulating a Velázquez painting which had been favoured by Philip IV of Spain. The earlier picture of Venus had been similarly kept out of view by that art-loving king in a private room, "the room where His Majesty retires after eating." In fact, the Inquisition by 1808 was nearing the end of its influence, and while it could draw attention to "dangerous" forms of expression, be they books, plays, or paintings, it was usually unable to fully suppress them. Provenance La maja desnuda has always hung alongside, above, or before its companion. They were twice in the collection of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, also in Madrid, being "sequestered" by the Inquisition between 1814 and 1836 before being returned. They have been in the Prado since 1901. It is not known if the two works were intended to be hung together. One early account gives the Clothed Maja placed in front of the current work; the pull of a cord revealed the nude version. Today they are hung side by