Francisco de Goya

Misfortune in the bullring in Madrid and death of the mayor of Torrejón

Clasificación
Misfortune in the bullring in Madrid and death of the mayor of Torrejón
Datos Generales
Cronología
1814 - 1816
Dimensiones
247 x 353 mm
Técnica y soporte
Reconocimiento de la autoría de Goya
Documented work
Ficha: realización/revisión
02 Oct 2021 / 22 Jun 2023
Inventario
-
Inscripciones

21 (print, upper right-hand corner)

Historia

See How the ancient Spaniards hunted bulls on horseback in the countryside

A state proof before aquaitint, wash and burnisher is preserved in the Provôt Collection in Paris.

The plate is kept at the National Chalcography (nº 354)

Análisis artístico

See How the ancient Spaniards hunted bulls on horseback in the countryside

Another of the most characteristic images of bullfighting. It narrates an event which, although its veracity is questioned by some authors, is usually identified with a real event that took place on June 1801 in the Madrid bullring, in which a bull leapt into the arena and carried off several people, killing two of them, one of them the mayor of the nearby town of Torrejón of Ardoz, who in the picture appears skewered, already dead, on the horns of the bull.

The most striking feature of the engraving is its unique point of view, its impossible and absurd perspective, which places the viewer at the same height as the audience. The composition is deliberately asymmetrical and unbalanced in the distribution of the masses, as Goya arranges the chaotic crowd grouped together in only a quarter of the available space, with sketchy, foreshortened figures, leaving the rest of the space almost empty, no doubt with the aim of increasing the sense of anxiety and unease that he intended to convey. Furthermore, the action takes place entirely in the stands of the bullring, without the arena playing a leading role, which breaks with the usual location of composition of bullfighting scenes. 

Although it refers to a specific event, Goya omits any detail that would allow us to identify the figures. Among the people crowded together on the right of the scene, we see how some figures flee to the left, while others are almost paralysed with fear, as in the case of a woman in the foreground on the right, whose face is unhinged with fright and who is being held by a man in a hat. There are bodies on the ground, crushed or trampled by the bull. The bull is on the right of the composition, in profile, its head covered by the skewered body of the mayor of Torrejón, from which one of the animal's horns is sticking out.

Count la Viñaza has already drawn attention to an enigmatic figure with his head peeping out from the outside of the barrier, observing the scene with a calm look, who seems to have Goya's physiognomy and could therefore be a self-portrait. Perhaps Goya's intention in this print was to denounce the insecurity of bullrings.

Martínez-Novillo relates this engraving, because of its crude bullfighting drama, to that of the death of Pepe Hillo, entitled The Unfortunate Death of Pepe Illo in the Bullring in Madrid, although in that case he changes the scene of a spectator being caught for that of a bullfighter.

Bagüés and Lafuente Ferrari were the first to situate the action depicted on the 15th June 1801, when the fourth bull from a Palaciosrubios (Salamanca) bull-ranch jumped into the bullring in Madrid and fell in the passage of the marshals' exit gate. Mayer and Martínez-Novillo, for their part, also speak of the royal functions of 1789, with historical references to bulls that jumped the barrier.

This print, despite grouping the figures in a very small part of the composition like the one immediately before it, entitled Lightness and Daringness of Juanito Apiñani in the one in Madrid, contrasts sharply with it, as that one had a playful sense and this one has a dramatic one.

Goya made a preparatory drawing for the present engraving, although very different, also entitled Misfortune in the bullring in Madrid and death of the mayor of Torrejón

Exposiciones
  • Grabados y dibujos de Goya en la Biblioteca Nacional
    Biblioteca Nacional
    Madrid
    1946
    catalogue Elena Páez Ríos
  • Boston
    1974
  • 1975
  • Goya en la Biblioteca Nacional. Exposición de grabados y dibujos en el sesquicentenario de su muerte
    Biblioteca Nacional
    Madrid
    1978
    May - June 1978
  •  Grabados de Goya: colección propiedad de la Biblioteca Nacional, que se conserva en su Gabinete de
    Casa de la Amistad de Moscú
    Moscow
    1979
    exhibition displayed from January 18th to 31st 1979
  • Goya. Das Zeitalter der Revolucionen. Kunst um 1800 (1980 – 1981)
    Hamburger Kunsthalle
    Hamburg
    1980
  • 1984
  • Madrid
    1987
  • Madrid
    1990
  • Goya grabador
    Museo del Grabado Español Contemporáneo
    Marbella
    1996
    from March 8th to May 5th 1996
  • Zaragoza
    1996
  • Ydioma universal: Goya en la Biblioteca Nacional
    Biblioteca Nacional
    Madrid
    1996
    from September 19th to December 15th 1996
  • Schlaf der Vernunft. Original radierungen von Francisco de Goya
    Munich
    2000
  • Madrid
    2002
  • Madrid
    2002
  • Goya en tiempos de guerra
    Museo Nacional del Prado
    Madrid
    2008
    consultant editor Manuela B. Mena Marqués, from April 14th to July 13th 2008
  • Bilbao
    2012
  • Goya luces y sombras
    CaixaForum
    Barcelona
    2012
    consultant editors José Manuel Matilla and Manuela B. Marqués. From March 16th to June 24th 2012
  • Goya et la modernité
    Pinacothèque de Paris
    París
    2013
    from October 11st 2013 to March 16th 2014
  • Goya: Order and disorder
    Museum of Fine Arts
    Boston
    2014
  • Zaragoza
    2017
  • Agen
    2019
  • Madrid
    2019
  • Zaragoza
    2021
Bibliografía
  • VIÑAZA, Conde de la
    MadridTipografía M.G. Hernández
    1887
    p. 411
  • ZaragozaTip. del Hospicio
    1926
    p. 32
  • MAYER, August L.
    BarcelonaLabor
    1925
    p. 272
  • LAFUENTE FERRARI, Enrique
    1946
    pp. 177-216, espec. p. 200
  • LUJÁN, Néstor
    BarcelonaTartessos-F. Oliver Branchfelt
    1946 (reed. 1951)
  • GLENDINNING, Nigel
    1961
    pp. 120-127
  • HARRIS, Tomás
    OxfordBruno Cassirer
    1964
    vol. II, 1964, p. 336, cat. 224
  • GASSIER, Pierre y WILSON, Juliet
    Vie et ouvre de Francisco de Goya
    ParísOffice du livre
    1970
    p. 278, cat. 1192
  • HOFMANN, Werner (ed.)
    Goya, Das Zeitalter de Revolutionen. 1789-1830
    HamburgPrestel-Verlag Münche und Hamburger Kunsthalle
    1980
    p. 145
  • HOLO, Selma Reuben
    MilwakeeMilwaukee Art Museum
    1986
    pp. 18, 19, 24 y 32
  • MARTÍNEZ-NOVILLO, Álvaro
    MadridCaser-Turner
    1992
    pp. 32-34 y 39
  • SANTIAGO, Elena M. (coordinadora)
    Catálogo de las estampas de Goya en la Biblioteca Nacional
    MadridMinisterio de Educación y Cultura, Biblioteca Nacional
    1996
    cat. 342
  • SANTIAGO PÁEZ, Elena y WILSON-BAREAU, Juliet (comisarias)
    Ydioma universal: Goya en la Biblioteca Nacional
    MadridBiblioteca Nacional, Sociedad Estatal Goya 96 y Lunwerg
    1996
    p. 255
  • MATILLA, José Manuel y MEDRANO, José Miguel
    MadridMuseo Nacional del Prado
    2001
    pp. 76-78
  • MATILLA, José Manuel
    MadridMuseo Nacional del Prado y Ediciones El Viso
    2008
    pp. 432-434, cat. 154-155
  • MENA MARQUÉS, Manuela B.
    Goya en tiempos de guerra
    MadridMuseo Nacional del Prado
    2008
    p. 433
  • OROPESA, Marisa and RINCÓN GARCÍA, Wilfredo
    ParísPinacoteca de París
    2013
    p. 108
  • ILCHMAN, Frederick y STEPANEK, Stephanie L. (comisarios)
    Goya: Order & Disorder
    BostonMuseum of Fine Arts Boston Publications
    2014
    p. 322
  • WILSON BAREAU, Juliet
    Goya. In the Norton Simon Museum
    PasadenaNorton Simon Museum
    2016
    pp. 186-201
  • MOTTIN, Bruno, EFEDAQUE, Adrien and WILSON-BAREU, Juliet
    AgenSnoeck
    2019
    p.121
  • MATILLA, José Manuel y MENA, Manuela B. (comisarios)
    MadridMuseo Nacional del Prado
    2019
    p. 217, cat. 136
  • GALLEGO GARCÍA, Raquel (comisaria)
    Goya. Traveler and artist of the Grand Tour (exp. cat.)
    ZaragozaGobierno de Aragón
    2021
    pp. 232-233
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