Cayetana and Las Dueñas

To think of the Casa de las Dueñas is, inevitably, to also bring back the memory of its most distinguished owner. María del Rosario Cayetana Paloma Alfonsa Victoria Eugenia Fernanda Teresa Francisca de Paula Lourdes Antonia Josefa Fausta Rita Castor Dorotea Santa Esperanza FitzJames Stuart and de Silva Falcó and Gurtubay, the Duchess of Alba, Cayetana, whose absence has recently been two years old.

Her love story with the city, which adopted her and made her feel “Sevillian to the bone” also led her to turn Las Dueñas into an international reference, filling her already splendid architecture with unique pieces of art and historical moments and turning it into one of the places of greatest interest in Seville.

Cayetana was not born in the city of Seville, but in the Liria Palace. Very soon circumstances took her out of Spain. First exiled in Paris and later on the occasion of the outbreak of the Civil War (which surprised her in Seville, with her aunt Sol) in London, where her father served as ambassador, and where she was in contact with Elizabeth II or Winston Churchill. But Cayetana never felt English, and finally at 17 she returned to the Casa de las Dueñas. There, on April 28, 1943, his launch took place, and his devotion to Seville, its people and its traditions began. She was finally able to put herself in the hands of teachers like Enrique el Cojo or Pastora Imperio to teach dance classes, one of her passions.

On October 12, 1947, she left Las Dueñas wearing her wedding dress (by Flora Villarreal) to the Cathedral of Seville, where she married Luis Martínez de Irujo y Artacoz, with whom she had six children.

During the 60s and 70s, he filled the rooms of the House with countless personalities from the world of cinema, culture, art or nobility, attracted by the Sevillian spell, such as the Princes of Monaco, Edward VII, Wallis Simpson, Arthur Rubinstein, Jackeline Kennedy, Cole Porter, the Kings of Spain or Richard Avedon, the author of the photograph that portrays the Duchess for Harper's Bazar.

Las Dueñas was also an incomparable setting for numerous family celebrations, such as the release of their daughter Eugenia, the weddings of their sons, Carlos, the current Duke of Alba, and Cayetano, and even the Duchess's own third wedding. Cayetana opened the doors of Las Dueñas for her loved ones to share the unique April Fair, of which it became one of her must-haves, or the solemnity of Holy Week, of which she cannot forget the passage of her adored Christ of the Gypsies through Dueñas Street.

It was inevitable that it was this house that Cayetana would choose to spend her last moments, and it is natural that it is Las Dueñas that is erected in memory of its famous owner, as a monument to visit in Seville in her memory.

This is why, in adapting the Casa de las Dueñas to allow its visit, the intervention carried out has been minimal, with the intention of preserving its spirit of a “lived house” and keeping the presence of Cayetana imbued in each of the rooms.

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