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A boy trying to do his homework buries his face in his hands to protect himself from the threat of an old woman´s whip. The brutality of the punishment is decisively underlined by the authoritative presence of the old woman, with her legs and hands open, her dominant figure contras with the smallness of the child. The almost animal characters of the woman´s face correspond to the irrationality of
The Virgin is depicted in three-quarter length, slightly turned towards the left and holding the Christ Child. A veil covers part of her head, and voluminous folds of this same garment surround her waist and hips. The background is plain. The Christ Child is turned towards the face of his mother, whose large, dark eyes look beyond the viewer with a distant and serious expression. This drawing is n
Jesus, half-kneeling on a stone, awaits his baptism. Saint John bends down to collect water from the river Jordan. Two angels hold Jesus’s garments behind him. Meanwhile, other angels on the right are represented in dialogue. God the Father is in the sky alongside the Holy Spirit and some angels. In the background, there is a landscape with a bridge and bathers. The figure of Saint John the Baptis
This work corresponds to Album E, one of seven albums or series of drawings that Goya created over the course of his life. This album is also known as the “black borders” album, due to the distinctive thick lines that frame each scene. The style, solid compositions and figures, clothing and hairstyles, as well as allusions to the Penninsular War (1808-1814) in some scenes, date the drawings from A
The wall decoration for which this design was intended was presumably over an altar dedicated to the Eucharist. The Old Testament story of Elijah visited by an angel was a prolepsis for the Eucharist. The prophet, who had been drive into the desert by Jezebel, was about to die from hunger and thirst, when an angel appeared to him bringing sustenance. In the central compartment of the drawing the a
This is a preparatory study, with only some differences, for Calvaert´s painting of the Holy Family with St. Catherine and the Infant St. John the Baptist in the Gemäldegalerie, Oldenburg, dated 1584. The drawing is squared for transfer and most of its principal outlines are followed in the painting. One of the main differences between the two, however, is that in the left background Jo
The angel stands and, with its right arm, embraces a child who walks in profile with his arms together towards the right of the composition. With his left hand, the angel points to a cross surrounded by cherubim, glowing above. There is a landscape background. It is a drawing of notable quality, somewhat reminiscent of Andalusian works influenced by Murillo’s style. However, it may be an Italian w
The two saints kneeling in the foreground are the little-known St. John of Matha, a native of Faucon in Provence, and St. Felix of Valois, who lived at the turn of the twelfth century. Both were founder members of the Order of the Trinitarians, whose main mission was to free captives taken by the Moors, either by offering ransoms or themselves, by proxy, hence their role as patron saints of prison
The Infant Christ appears seated, undoubtedly on his mother’s lap. He extends his right arm and raises his head in the same direction. It is a drawing produced at the end of the 17th century by an artist in Madrid who was related to Carreño’s circle. The work is mounted on a cardboard frame and has been attributed to Murillo, an unfounded claim.
A good number of the drawings in this Sketchbook F portray scenes from the daily lives of humble country people. With intense strokes of washes applied with a brush, Goya created compositions depicting characters in unsettling atmospheres. Here, a couple loaded with bales walks together with their daughter and a small dog through a desolate landscape subtly insinuated. Goya provides no details to
Sketchbook F, sheet 7. The earliest works in this sketchbook were drawn on reused paper. The circular mark near the top left of this sheet is an artifact of a stamp that guaranteed authenticity by an expert or institution. The seal in blue ink at the top is that of the Museo Nacional de Pinturas or Museo de la Trinidad, where the drawing was previously housed. In a festive atmosphere, a dancer wit
This vaulted space, the site of what seems to be a visit to a quack, is a typical feature used in Goya´s composition when his intention is to create a dark atmosphere for symbolic purposes. The scene has a disturbing quality, due to the way the child is being held in the arms of a man or woman whose face we cannot see and whose intentions are unknown, although the mother in the background displays
Because of its technique and theme, this Sketchbook F seems to have been produced around the same time as Album C, roughly between 1812 and 1820. The drawings were executed using a brush an iron gall ink, the same ink as used for standard writing at that time. In this case, Goya reused an old notebook due to the shortage of paper at that time. Despite its thematic variety, the Sketchbook F present
The absence of a title written by Goya opnes up the possibilities of interpretation for his drawings, where three figures are arranged in different postures in front of a fence positioned in the background. Two of them are trying to help a third one who has fallen to the ground. The austerity and elegance of the charitable young woman at the left, highlighted by the white of her dress, is a remini
