This Tonadilla originates from a set of pieces for voice and piano, dedicated to the “Maya” paintings by the classical Spanish painter Francisco de Goya (eighteenth century). Granados was a great admirer of this painter, witness his Goyescas that are amongst his best pieces and that are based on Goya’s art.
What Granados bore in mind exactly, remains a question: the painting La Maya de Goya exists in two versions, La Maya Vestida (the dressed girl) and La Maya Desnuda (the naked girl).