What is the meaning of Fransisco Goya painting 'The Nude Maja'?

Goya painted two similar pictures which hang in the Prado Museum in Madrid. One is "The Naked Maja" ("La maja desnuda") and the other is "The Clothed Maja." A maja was a fashionable woman. Supposedly, the clothed one was painted to save the lady's reputation, although it is unknown who she was. He could claim he'd painted that one from life, and simply imagined what she looked like unclothed. Nude portraits were not common, and tended to be of muses or goddesses.