he theme of women on a balcony overseen by watchful, somewhat threatening male companions strongly engaged Goya, who treated this subject in a more sinister manner in a painting now in a private collection. Dating from about 1810 the latter is among Goya's masterpieces. The Metropolitan's painting is sometimes considered a variant composition, its attribution questioned by some experts. Expressively and stylistically, however, the two paintings are quite different: the sweetly smiling young women in our picture appear to be the protected daughters of the upper class, dressed in the then fashionable "maja" style, whereas the "majas" in the other painting are generally understood as prostitutes. Murillo's "Two Women at a Window" (National Gallery of Art, Washington) of 1655–60 must have inspired Goya's startlingly illusionistic depiction, while Manet's famously Goyesque "The Balcony" (1868–69, Musée d'Orsay, Paris) seems indebted to the Metropolitan's picture, which the French artist could have seen during his trip to Spain in 1865. The Metropolitan's painting has suffered from abrasion and past overcleaning.