This still life with a dead turkey and a wicker basket was one of a series of twelve still lifes belonging to Goya himself. They appear in the inventory of his property made after the death of his wife, Josefa Bayeu (1747-1812)

There are no known examples of earlier independent still lifes by Goya, although he included splendid details in works on other subjects.

The pictorial genre of still lifes, which greatly developed in Spain during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was still considered a lesser genre in Goya's time.

This work was acquired by the Ministry of Development for the Prado Museum Collection in 1900.