José Brunetti, 15th Duke of Arcos

Prado Museum, to which he made a posthumous bequest of ten paintings, including Young Man with a Feather Hat, by Pieter Hermansz Verelst

Court of Turin, his family remained in Madrid. José, the only boy, was the last of the five children of his parents and, a few months after his birth, lost his father after Count Brunetti died in Castelfranco, near Florence, in December 1839.^[2]

Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen Isabella II in charge of Infanta María del Pilar. The Marchioness of Sotomayor died in June 1866, shortly after the death of her first-born daughter, Sofía. Later, and through his maternal ancestry, José Brunetti was able to access the distribution of the numerous titles of his uncle, Mariano Téllez-Girón, 12th Duke of Osuna (and 14th Duke of Arcos), who died without issue in 1882, and managed to succeed him as Duke of Arcos in 1892. Likewise, his sisters Cristina, who married politician Fermín de Lasala, and Laura, respectively became Duchesses of Mandas and Monteagudo.^[3]

Spanish-American War of 1898.^[7][8] He was formally received by President William McKinley on 3 June 1899 in the "Blue Parlor" of the White House.^[9] While in the United States, he lived at 1785 Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C.^[10]

Counts of Arcos.^[12]

Grandee of Spain.^[12] He never claimed, however, the rest of the dignities of the House of Arcos: the Marquessate of Zahara, traditionally held by the first-born sons of the Dukes, and the Counties of Casares and Bailén, so these titles were dispersed among various descendants of the Duchess of Osuna.^[13]

U.S. Senator, Governor of New Hampshire, and Justice of the Supreme Court.^[15] Her parents opposed her courtship with Count Brunetti, a young diplomat without fortune, and although they also disapproved of his main rival, a naval officer who would eventually become the famous Admiral George Dewey, they preferred him because he was American. Virginia, however, secretly became engaged to Brunetti, but did not want to marry against the opposition of her father. After leaving for successive destinations in Latin America, and after succeeding to the dukedom, in 1895, almost two decades later, her father withdrew his veto, and the couple married in October 1895 at the Lowerys' summer home in New London, Connecticut.^[16]

Woodbury Lowery, the Duke and Duchess gave $20,000 to Harvard University "the income of which is to be used for research in history, preferably American history in the archives of foreign countries and more particularly in Spain."^[15] Upon her death, the Duchess left an additional $50,000 to Harvard to be added to the trust fund for the Woodbury Lowery fellowship.^[19]

Second Republic, and the works entered the Prado collections. The Duchess left a large collection of pictures, and fans,^[21] to the National Gallery in Washington and a number of pictures, including works by Henry Raeburn, Lebruns, and Greuzes (as well as Portrait of a Princess of France as Diana by Philippe Vignon), to the Prado.^[19]