The first artist to portray pubic hair of a naked woman was gay

A book by art historian Natacha Sesena about the life of the well-known artist Francisco de Goya has been recently released in Madrid, Spain. The book is filled with curious details about the intimate life of the Spanish master. According to the author, the artist used to have a homosexual relationship with his friend Martin Zapater, whom de Goya portrayed on two of his works.

The conclusion about the unconventional sexual orientation of the Spanish artist was made on the base of his correspondence with his friend, Martin Zapater. Natacha Sesena quoted some of the letters in the book; below is an excerpt of the letter that Goya wrote during the peak of his artistic career, between 1775 and 1800:

"My Martin, I am desperate to go with you because I like you so much, and we suit each other so well, and it is impossible to find anyone comparable, and I imagine what my life would be if we could be together and hunt and drink chocolate and spend the 23 reales I have in your company. It would be the greatest happiness in the world."

Goya signed some of his letters as "Yours and yours again, Paco Goya" or "He who loves you more than you think." The Spanish master signed off one of his letters as "Take a thousand embraces! Take what I can not give you!" To illustrate the signature, Goya enclosed two drawings of male and female genitals. "Homosexual erotica permeates those letters," Sesena wrote.

One of Francisco de Goya's paintings depicts the Spanish royal family, on which Queen Maria-Loisa is seen holding her son's hand, and she put her other hand on something that bears resemblance to a phallus.

The painting was probably an allusion to Royal Minister Manuel Godoy, who was the queen's lover. Art historian Natacha Sesena supposed that Goya wanted to say with the painting that Manuel Godoya's penis used to reign on the Spanish throne.

Francisco de Goya's mother did not interfere in her husband's sexual affairs. She was pregnant many times, but she lost the majority of her babies in labor. It is also known that Goya had and affair with Cayetana - a beautiful girl from an aristocratic Spanish family. The artist spent nine months living in her estate in 1797, and she posed nude for another famous work of Goya, which made him the first artist, who portrayed a naked woman with pubic hair.