- Cronología
- 1786 - 1787
- Ubicación
- Lost work
- Dimensiones
- 56 x 193 cm
- Técnica y soporte
- Oil on canvas
- Reconocimiento de la autoría de Goya
- Attributed work
- Ficha: realización/revisión
- 16 Dec 2009 / 14 Jun 2023
This piece forms part of the series of cartoons that Goya made for the decoration of the king's conversation room in the palace of El Pardo. They were painted between May 1786, shortly after Goya was named royal painter, and the end of 1787. With this series Goya once again took up the work on the tapestry cartoons, six years after the last delivery, which was made before the closing and reopening of the tapestry factory.
In the inventory carried out by Vicente López in 1834 for Ferdinand VII's will, this piece is listed - albeit without any attribution to an artist - but it did not enter the collection of the Prado Museum with the other works, and as such must have been lost very early on.
Thanks to the tapestry that survives to this day we are able to see what appearance this cartoon, made for an overdoor piece, would have had. It had exactly the same dimensions as Two Cats Fighting on a Wall, its companion on the east wall, and, like this other work, does not correspond to any of the stretcher sizes specified in the records of Josef Serrano, the carpenter.
Águeda is of the opinion that the composition is typical of Goya's overdoor pieces and identifies the birds that appear in the image as partridges, featuring as they do tell-tale spots on the plumage and flying low over the ground, just the way the artist tended to represent this bird.
Arnaiz prefers not to take one stance or another regarding the question of Goya's authorship and points out that the work may possibly correspond to a sketch included as item number 29 in the inventory carried out at the time of the death of Josefa Bayeu, and in which it was valued at 25 reales.
Tomlinson does voice an opinion on the question of authorship, saying that she does not believe this to be the work of Goya, and that this work was attributed to the artist purely because it appeared to form a pair with Two Cats Fighting on a Wall.
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Tapices de GoyaMadridPatrimonio Nacional1946p. 262, cat. 51
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BarcelonaPolígrafa1970vol. I, p. 270, cat. 231
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Novedades en torno a una serie de cartones de GoyaBoletín del Museo Nacional del PradoMadrid1984pp. 41-46
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Francisco de Goya, cartones y tapicescol. col. "Espasa Arte"Espasa Calpe1987pp. 149, 176, 301, cat. 55C y lám. XIII
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Francisco de Goya. Los cartones para tapices y los comienzos de su carrera en la corte de Madridcol. col. "Ensayos de Arte Cátedra"MadridCátedra1987pp. 205-206
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Salas del Palacio Real de El Pardo para las que se tejieron tapices sobre cartones de Francisco de Goya: identificación de las habitaciones y ajuste de las obras de Goya en los alzados de las paredesin HERRERO CARRETERO, Concha (curator, Tapices y cartones de Goya (catalogue of the exhibition organizated at the Palacio Real de Madrid, from may to june 1996)MadridPatrimonio Nacional, Goya 96, Lunwerg1996p. 165 (il.)