Prince Balthasar Charles, hunter

This drawing by Goya, executed in red pencil on a preliminary outline drawing in black pencil and framed by a fine line also in red pencil, faithfully reproduces the oil painting Prince Balthasar Charles, hunter, painted by Diego Velázquez between 1635 and 1636 and now in the Prado Museum.

Prince Balthasar Charles (1629-1646) was the son of Philip IV and Isabella of Bourbon and heir to the Spanish throne, to which he never ascended as he died early. Even as a child he was a great hunting enthusiast, as the original oil painting on which this drawing is based shows. The young prince, still a child, is shown holding a shotgun and accompanied by two hunting dogs: a retriever on his right and a greyhound on his left, which is barely distinguishable as it is cropped as in the original oil painting, which was reduced in size and not outlined in red pencil.

The figure of the main character was drawn by Goya with abundant strokes of red pencil in order to create a deep contrast with the surrounding natural landscape, probably the Guadarrama mountain range.

This drawing can be related to two others which are also copies of paintings by Velazquez and which show scenes of royal figures hunting: The Infant Don Fernando and Philip IV, hunter. It is one of what Gassier-Wilson called additional drawings: five drawings copied from works by Velázquez to be engraved but for which no proof of any state is known. All of them are preserved in the Hamburger Kunsthalle, along with others from the series that were actually engraved. Apart from the present one, these drawings are: The Water Carrier of Seville; Philip IV, hunter; The Child of Vallecas and The Infant Charles of Austria.