- Cronología
- 1806 - 1810
- Ubicación
- North Carolina Museum, Raleigh, United States
- Dimensiones
- 101 x 80 cm
- Técnica y soporte
- Oil on canvas
- Reconocimiento de la autoría de Goya
- Attributed work
- Titular
- North Carolina Museum
- Ficha: realización/revisión
- 11 May 2010 / 15 Jun 2023
- Inventario
- (56.13.1)
- Otros títulos:
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The Drinkers (Los bebedores)
On the back of the painting the word "Doctor" ("Medico") is visible. The painting may have been dedicated to Goya's physician, Dr. Arrieta, who we can see in the painting by the Aragonese artist entitled Goya tended to by Arrieta, offering his patient - curiously enough - a glass of something to drink (1820, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts).
This painting came from the collection of the Duke of Osuna. It was later in the Nemes collection, in Budapest.
It was bequeathed to the North Carolina Museum of Art by the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation.
This painting shows two men, each wearing a hat and leaning on a table. They each have a glass of wine in their hands and, going by the expressions on their faces, appear to be quite drunk. The face of the figure on the left-hand side has been captured in a very caricatured manner, almost as if he were wearing a mask.
Wilhelm Reinhold Valentiner points out that, although this is a dark, almost monochromatic painting, the purplish highlights on the protagonists' clothes, as well as the red of the wine and the flushed faces of the two drinkers, all afford a note of colour. The dark nature of the painting is largely due to the fact that the head of the drinker on the left-hand side is directly in front of and blocking the scene's dim source of light.
This depiction of a popular theme could be related to the costumbrista scenes painted by Frans Hals (Antwerp, 1580-Haarlem, 1666). Those optimistic paintings, set in cosy, intimate surroundings, have here been interpreted by Goya in a more satirical tone, with the Aragonese artist reflecting something of the rather sinister appearance of these two drunk men.
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The topers by Goya in the North Carolina Museum of ArtThe Art Quarterly1956pp. 437-440
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Vie et ouvre de Francisco de GoyaParísOffice du livre1970p. 201,cat. 871
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BarcelonaPolígrafa1970vol. I, p. 351, cat. 581