Description
Two groups of working-class travelers, one with a slaughtered pig in tow, converge on an icy road during a snowstorm. Francisco de Goya captured the scene’s wintry atmosphere with barren trees, large swaths of cool grays and whites, and diagonal brushstrokes that convey rapid snowfall. This small painting is one of a series of studies Goya created for monumental tapestries depicting the four seasons, commissioned for a dining hall at the Royal Palace of El Pardo in Spain. The image would have been scaled up to life-size and then manufactured by weavers in Spain’s Royal Tapestry Factory.
Provenance
One of six oil sketches as preparations for cartoons for tapestries that were to decorate the dining room of the Prince of Asturias in the royal palace of El Pardo near Madrid, 1786; the set of sketches sold by Goya to the Duke and Duchess of Osuna, La Alameda, 1798/1799 [for documentation relating to this sale, see Gassier-Wilson 1970, pp. 383-4]; by descent, the dukes of Osuna, sold Madrid, M. Tello, May 11, 1896, no. 74 to Dr. Cerbera, Madrid. Desparmet Fitz-Gerald, Paris, about 1910 [according to Juliet Wilson Bareau in Madrid/London/Chicago 1993/94]. Demotte, Paris and New York [letter of December 9, 1957 from Abris Silberman to Hans Huth in curatorial file states that Silberman acquired the painting “directly from the Demott [sic] Estate,” presumably referring to the stock of this gallery after the death of Lucien Demotte in 1934]; E. and A. Silberman Galleries, New York, by 1941 [lent to Chicago, 1941]; sold to Everett D. Graff (died 1964), Winnetka, 1942 [letter of April 23, 1942 to Silberman, copy in curatorial file]; his widow, Verde C. Graff (died 1989), Winnetka; bequeathed to the Art Institute, 1990.
Accession Number
93450
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
34.3 × 35.6 cm (13 1/2 × 14 in.); Framed: 49.6 × 50.8 × 7.7 cm (19 1/2 × 20 × 3 in.)
Classification
oil on canvas
Credit Line
Bequest of Verde C. Graff
Background & Context
Background Story
Francisco Goya's "Winter Scene" (c. 1786) is an oil on canvas from the period when Goya was working as a painter of cartoons for the Royal Tapestry Factory in Madrid. These tapestry cartoons were designs for tapestries that would decorate the royal palaces, and they typically depicted scenes of everyday Spanish life in a light, decorative style. "Winter Scene" shows figures in a winter landscape, perhaps warming themselves by a fire or engaged in winter activities. The palette is brighter and more colorful than Goya's later, darker works. The composition is lively and anecdotal. This painting belongs to Goya's early career, before the illness in 1793 that left him permanently deaf and before the Napoleonic Wars turned his art toward darker subjects. It shows the artist working in the Rococo-inspired style that pleased his royal patrons, a style he would soon abandon for the more personal and critical vision that made him one of the most original artists of his age.
Cultural Impact
Goya's tapestry cartoons represent the foundation of his career as a court painter, showing his mastery of the decorative Rococo style before he developed the darker, more personal vision of his later years.
Why It Matters
This winter scene from Goya's early career shows the artist working in a light, decorative style for the royal court, a world away from the dark visions of his later years but already displaying the observational skill and compositional confidence that would define his greatest work.
