Goya's Prison: - Red Square Design

Goya’s Prison: 

the Year of Despair 

The Bowes Museum opened to the public in 1892. Built 

in the style of a French château and sitting in the English 

countryside of County Durham, it is the result of Victorian 

enterprise, taste and philanthropic imagination. John 

Bowes, the illegitimate son of the 10th Earl of Strathmore, 

was a successful businessman who inherited his father’s 

wealth but not his title. In 1847 he moved to Paris and met 

Joséphine Coffin-Chevallier, an actress who became his 

wife. Their shared love of art led to the creation of a worldclass 

museum in Teesdale, the place of John’s birth. 

The Bowes Museum 

Barnard Castle 

County Durham DL12 8NP 

01833 690606 

www.thebowesmuseum.org.uk 

info@thebowesmuseum.org.uk 

The Museum is home to the finest collection of European 

fine and decorative arts in the North. Highlights include 

works by Goya, El Greco and Canaletto as well as 

outstanding Second Empire furniture from Monbro and 

ceramics from the factories of Sèvres and Meissen not 

to mention the Museum’s iconic Silver Swan automaton. 

Today the collections have ‘designated’ status awarded 

by the Museum, Libraries and Archive Council in 

recognition of their national importance. To complement 

these collections, The Bowes Museum offers an ongoing 

programme of exhibitions – often bringing objects of 

national and international significance to North East England. 

All of this is underpinned by the Museum’s acclaimed 

education work. 

Registered Charity No. 1079639 

© The Bowes Museum 

ISBN 978-0-9548182-7-2 

Cover image: 

Interior of a Prison 

Francisco de Goya 

1793-4 

Oil on tinplate 

42.9 x 32.7cm 


Inside cover image: 

Handwritten catalogue of paintings of 

The Bowes Museum 1878, listing Goya’s 

Interior of a Prison and Pereda’s 

Tobias Restoring his Father’s Sight

Goya’s Prison – the Year of Despair 

Adrian Jenkins

Chairman’s Foreword 

In 1892 when The Bowes Museum opened its doors to the public, amongst the paintings 

it housed, seventy six were by Spanish painters. At this time the National Gallery in London 

owned twenty Spanish paintings by ten artists (six by Murillo, five by Velásquez, two by Ribera 

and one each by El Greco, Juan de Flandes, León, Mazo, Morales, Valdés Leal and Zurbarán). 

Thus in 1892 The Bowes Museum provided the public with the largest collection of Spanish 

paintings in Britain. Today it is still, after the National Gallery, the best place to explore Spanish 

painting, its collections quite distinct from those in national collections. 

In this in-focus study, our Director, Adrian Jenkins has concentrated on one Spanish painting, 

Interior of a Prison by Francisco de Goya. It is a picture that in spite of its small size, attracts 

much comment from visitors to The Bowes Museum. We hope that this publication will 

increase our visitors’ enjoyment and appreciation of one of the gems in The Bowes Museum’s 

picture collection. 

Lord Foster of Bishop Auckland 

Chairman, Trustees of The Bowes Museum 

2 

1 Tears of St Peter 

Domenikos Theotokopoulos called El Greco 

(1541-1614) 

c.1580, 

Oil on canvas 108 x 89.6cm 


2 The Immaculate Conception 

José Antolínez (1635-1675) 

c.1660 

Oil on canvas 167.6 x 163.8cm 


3 Tobias Restoring his Father’s Sight 

Antonio de Pereda (1611-1678) 

1642 

Oil on canvas 192 x 157cm 


Figures 1, 2 and 3 were amongst those paintings purchased from the collection of the Conde de Quinto by John and Joséphine Bowes in 1862. 

Goya’s Prison – the Year of Despair


In 1862 John and Joséphine Bowes made numerous purchases at the 

sale of the collection of the Conde de Quinto who had died in 1860. 

The Conde de Quinto, politician, courtier, writer and art collector, had 

built up a magnificent collection facilitated by his position as Director of 

the Museo de la Trinidad in Madrid. The widowed Condesa was living 

in Paris, where all of the pictures were housed. The Condesa was in 

desperate need of income and sought to sell the collection of paintings 

her husband had acquired. Coincidentally, her agent and advisor was 

Benjamin Gogué, who was also working in the same capacity for John and 

Joséphine Bowes. 

The sale of the paintings was to be held at the Condesa’s house in the 

Avenue Matignon, and a catalogue was published in June 1862. (Fig. 24) 

John Bowes was given an advance copy, with the addition of the prices 

the Condesa was asking. Gogué encouraged the Bowes’ to buy liberally. 

Ultimately, of the two hundred and seventeen pictures listed in the Conde 

de Quinto sale catalogue, Bowes purchased seventy five, all now at The 

Bowes Museum, including El Greco’s Tears of St Peter. (Figs.1, 2, 3) 1 

Eight works in the sale catalogue were attributed to the hand of 

Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) including three purchased by John and 

Joséphine Bowes:- 

No 44 Portrait of his brother 

No 45 Don Juan Antonio Meléndez Valdés 

No 48 Interior of a Prison 2 

3 

6 Self portrait in the studio 


c.1794-5 


Madrid, Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando 

4 Portrait of John Bowes 

Jacques Feyen (1815-1908) 

1863 



5 Portrait of Joséphine Bowes 

Antoine Dury (1819-after 1878) 

1850 



7 Entry from the handwritten catalogue of paintings of 

The Bowes Museum 1878 listing Interior of a Prison. 


Whilst The Bowes purchased works from the 

Condesa by Goya and El Greco, it appears that 

they did so with some reluctance. Gogué, writing 

to John Bowes in July 1862 urged him: 

“...I have sold several pictures by these 

two masters. Although these two don’t 

appeal to you as masters, I think you might 

well take one of each of them for your 

collection...” 3 

John and Joséphine’s response to Gogué proved 

to be inspired, as in 1862 neither Goya or El Greco 

were to fashionable tastes. 

4 

Of the Goyas purchased from the collection of the 

Conde de Quinto the portrait sketch of an old man 

described as the artist’s brother has been largely 

discredited by scholars as being by a follower 

of Goya. (Fig. 29) Goya’s portrait of Meléndez 

Valdés, the poet, lawyer and good friend of the 

artist, is regarded as one of a number of portraits 

painted by Goya at the end of the 1790s that may 

owe debt to late 18th Century English painters, 

particularly Gainsborough and Reynolds. (Fig.16) 

8 Interior of a Prison 


1793-4 

Oil on tinplate 42.9 x 32.7cm 


Of the three works Interior of a Prison, dated 

1793-4, is by far the smallest yet is the most 

affecting, the image having the greatest impact 

upon the viewer. 4 Under a gloomy archway are 

seven prisoners with hands and feet bound 

by heavy chains. They are seen in a variety of 

postures, some seated or leaning against a wall, 

another lying on the ground with his head towards 

the spectator. In this small, delicately painted 

picture Goya has presented us with a scene 

dominated by an atmosphere of utter desolation. 

The prison scene was not however, the only 

disturbing image in the Goya section of the Conde 

de Quinto sale. Also listed was Yard with Lunatics, 

a terrifying vision of a madhouse 5 . (Fig.9) 


Goya’s Prison – the Year of Despair explores the story 

behind these dark images and what compelled Goya 

to paint them. 

By 1792, Goya, approaching forty-six, had become 

bored with painting cartoons for the Royal Tapestry 

Factory. (Fig.10) Since 1775 he had painted more than 

sixty, full size, colour compositions. Some were huge. 

The money was good, but they were only for Royal 

consumption, and no wider audience saw them. In 

any case, the very nature of translating Goya’s painted 

images into large scale tapestry production forced 

his technique to limit its expressiveness. Goya’s 

career was at a crossroads. Although he had achieved 

acclaim and patronage as a painter of portraits, genre 

and religious scenes, it appears that he was not where 

he wanted to be. His destiny was determined after he 

was stricken by an illness that remains a mystery to 

this day. Whatever the cause of the illness, the year 

that followed marked a turning point in defining the 

career of one of Western art’s greatest masters. 

In October 1792, just before his illness struck, Goya 

had been one of a number of Academicians who 

addressed the Royal Academy with ideas for reforms 

in the teaching of art. Goya spoke passionately against 

the imposition of rules in painting and of a common 

curriculum to be forced upon all students. He criticised 

those who lauded the perfection of Greek statues as 

subject matter above the study of nature. Goya asked 

his audience: 

“What statue or cast of it might there be that 

is not copied from divine nature? As excellent 

as the artist may be who copied it, can he not 

but proclaim that when placed at its side, one 

is the work of God and the other of our own 

miserable hands?” 6 

Standing at the centre of the cultural elite of Madrid, 

Goya’s statement demonstrated his desire for all 

artists to enjoy an uninhibited freedom of expression 

and unbridled exploration of the imagination. 

9 Yard with Lunatics 


1793-4 


Dallas, Meadows Museum, 

Southern Methodist University 

5 


6 

10 The Picnic 


1788 


London, The National Gallery 

A sketch for one of a series of cartoons for 

tapestries ordered by Charles III to decorate 

the Bedchamber of the Infantas at the Palace 

of El Pardo. The King died in 1788 and the 

project was abandoned. 

11 Venus presenting Arms to Aeneas 

Corrado Giaquinto (1703-1766) 

c.1753-62 



The intellectual centre of artistic life in Madrid was the Royal Academy 

of San Fernando. The teaching programme was based on the example 

of the French Academy. During Goya’s early career it was heavily 

influenced by the Bohemian-born artist Anton Raphael Mengs 

(1728-1779), who established himself in Madrid from 1761 following 

a successful period in Italy, where he had become leader of the 

Neoclassical style of painting. Mengs arrived in Madrid at the invitation 

of the Spanish King Charles III and, during his terms of office as Court 

Painter, he reformed the academic system, encouraging greater 

emphasis on classical form and principles. Under Mengs’ influence the 

Academy’s library was filled with classical texts, casts after classical 

statues and prints of classical buildings. 

Although Goya reacted adversely to Mengs’ approach to the teaching 

of art, it was nevertheless Mengs he had to thank for his initial break 

into the higher echelons of Madrid’s artistic elite. It was on Mengs‘ 

recommendation that Goya, following his arrival in Madrid in 1775, was 

offered work at the Royal Tapestry Factory of Santa Barbara, to which 

Mengs had been appointed Director. 

Whilst Mengs’ dry, academic Neoclassicism did not appeal to Goya’s 

artistic sensibilities, he was more appreciative of the work of two Italian 

masters of the Rococo, who, like Mengs, received royal commissions 

in Madrid: the Venetian Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and Corrado Giaquinto 

from Naples. (Fig.11) Giaquinto was in Madrid between 1753 and 61, 

while Tiepolo arrived in 1762 and remained until his death in 1770. (Fig.12) 

What Goya absorbed from them as he worked on tapestry commissions 

was the Rococo’s exuberant celebration of fantasy and caprice. This 

they expressed in the dramatic frescoes and ceiling decorations for 

the royal palaces that Goya would have been able to study at first 

hand. A century later their work was to appeal to the taste of John 

and Joséphine Bowes, who acquired Giaquinto’s Venus Presenting Arms 

to Aeneas at the Conde de Quinto’s sale of 1862, and Tiepolo’s The 

Harnessing of the Horses of the Sun, which entered the collection by 1877. 

Soon after his speech to the Academy, late in 1792, Goya left Madrid, 

heading south to Andalusia. He was ill, but none of his medical friends 

could identify the cause. All he knew was that he was suffering from 

terrible noises in his head, severe dizziness, loss of balance and, for a 

while, an inability to walk up or down stairs without feeling nauseous. 

His eyesight was failing him and he regularly fainted. 


Whatever the cause, Goya’s unfathomable illness left him profoundly 

deaf. Whilst the origins of his ailment have been speculated on at 

length – syphilis or meningitis being amongst the two most popular 

theories – all that is certain is that, as he approached middle age, Goya 

found himself in an isolated, alien world, with his ability to communicate 

all but destroyed. What added to the mystery of Goya’s affliction was 

the fact that his brother-in-law and colleague at the tapestry factory, the 

painter and tapestry designer Ramón Bayeu, fell ill at the same time. 

Born in 1746, the same year as Goya, he died in March 1793, as the 

latter was beginning to recover. 

Goya spent his convalescence at the home of Sebastian Martinez, 

a wine exporter based in Cadiz. (Fig.13) Martinez was a self-made 

man and one of Spain’s major private art collectors. He owned a large 

collection of prints by European artists and was particularly interested 

in English painters, all of which Goya was able to absorb during his stay. 

This period of study was to influence Goya’s approach to portraiture, 

having spent time looking at prints after Romney, Reynolds and 

Gainsborough at close hand, as well as engravings after Hogarth. 

12 The Harnessing of the Horses of the Sun 

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770) 

c.1731 



As a new year dawned, Goya’s school friend from Saragossa, the 

wealthy merchant, Martin Zapater, responded to a letter from Martinez 

in Cadiz: 

7 

“Your letter of the fifth of this month has left me as worried 

about our friend Goya as the first I received, and since the nature 

of his malady is of the most fearful, I am forced to think with 

melancholy about his recuperation.” 7 

By March 1793, whilst Goya’s overall condition had improved, he 

was clearly still unwell. Now able to write to Zapater himself, Goya 

exclaimed: 

“My dear soul, I can stand on my own feet, but so poorly 

that I don’t know if my head is on my shoulders; I have no 

appetite or desire to do anything at all.” 8 

A few weeks later Martinez updated Zapater on the extent of his 

guest’s recovery: 

“… our Goya is getting on slowly but there is some improvement 

… The noise in his head and his deafness are just the same, 

but his sight is much better and he is no longer affected by the 

dizziness that made him lose his balance. He is already going 

up and down stairs very well and in fact is doing things that he 

would not do before.” 9 

13 Don Sebastián Martínez y Pérez 


1792 


New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art 

One of his finest portraits Goya depicts 

Sebastián Martínez, the patron who supported him 

during his months of illness. It is dated 1792 and so 

must have been painted just prior to the onset of 

Goya’s disease. Martínez sits holding a letter with the 

dedicatory inscription: ‘Don Sebastián Martínez, 

from his friend Goya.’ 


8 

14 Sorting the Bulls 


1793 

Oil on tinplate 42.6 x 32cm 

Private Collection 

15 The Strolling Players 


1793-4 


Madrid, Museo del Prado 

It was during these months of recuperation that Goya truly began to 

explore his individualism that, as an artist, he had advocated for all painters 

at the Academy a few months earlier. Whilst at Martinez’s house in Cadiz, 

and also following his return to Madrid in the summer, Goya dedicated 

himself to producing a set of small paintings which he described as a series 

of ‘cabinet’ pictures. 10 

The twelve works, all painted on small tin sheets, were to become the 

tinplate templates of inspiration and guidance for much of the rest of his 

artistic output. 

In his series of cabinet pictures Goya allowed himself to produce images 

that were of personal interest, rather than working under the obligations 

imposed by patrons. The subjects were diverse – six scenes of bulls and 

bullfighting, (Fig.14) for which Goya had a passion; a shipwreck, a raging 

inferno, a murderous stagecoach hold-up, a travelling theatre, (Fig.15) a 

lunatic asylum and the inside of a prison. Goya had painted some of the 

subjects previously, but as a group the cabinet pictures were to mark a 

transition from the limitations which the tapestry cartoons placed on his 

imagination, to a world of dark visions and caprices (‘caprichos’- meaning 

imagination, fantasy). 

Undoubtedly with that in mind, on the 4th January 1794 Goya wrote to 

Bernardo de Iriate, the Academy’s Deputy, to explain his activities during 

his illness: 

“In order to occupy my imagination …I set myself to painting a 

series of cabinet pictures in which I have been able to depict themes 

that cannot usually be addressed in commissioned works, where 

‘caprichos’ and invention have little part to play. I thought of sending 

them to the Academy …” 11 (Fig.19) 

Iriate must have responded to Goya’s letter immediately, since the 

following day Goya unveiled his new works before the Academy. Two days 

later Goya wrote to Iriate once more to thank him and express gratitude for 

the favourable reception given to his work by the Academicians and their 

sympathetic enquiries about his health. He added that the pictures could 

remain in Iriate’s home as long as he wished, and added: 

“as well as the final one which I have already begun, which shows 

a yard of lunatics, and two naked figures fighting while the keeper 

beats them, and others in sacks (it is in a scene I once saw in 

Saragossa). 12 I will send it to your Excellency in order to complete 

the series.” 13 (Fig. 21) 


Goya’s reference to a “yard of lunatics” refers to the last painting in 

the series, now in Dallas, which warrants comparison with Interior of 

a Prison. These paintings of a madhouse and a prison in the cabinet 

series are important in two vital respects. They demonstrate the 

interest Goya had in penal reform, which he shared with friends like 

Meléndez Valdés, but also suggest Goya’s emotional and mental state 

as he sought to come to terms with the illness that had brought him 

down so violently and permanently. Looking at both pictures, one 

cannot help but speculate as to their symbolism to Goya himself. The 

naked, brawling inmates in Yard with Lunatics, themselves surrounded 

by chaotic scenes with prisoners in various states of undress, could 

easily refer to the months spent in Cadiz with Martinez, where Goya 

stricken by constant dizziness and noises in his head, must have 

feared for his sanity. 

Interior of a Prison seems to suggest another fear for a man 

who had experienced Goya’s trauma – the fear of utter, desolate 

isolation. If one were to search for a work in Western art to 

convey the word ‘hopelessness’ then it would be hard to find one 

better than Interior of a Prison. 

Take a moment to absorb the stillness of the scene, which is 

oppressive, each prisoner consumed by his own thoughts. The 

archway, which offers a glimmer of light, reveals the thickness of 

the walls; barriers that act as a metaphor for each of their resigned 

despair – they can scream as loudly as they want, but their cries will 

never be heard. 

Goya has heightened the sense of claustrophobic suffocation by 

emphasising the chains and leg and hand irons worn by the prisoners. 

The man lying in the foreground is both attached to the wall by a chain 

around his neck and to a wooden bench by rings around his legs. In 

this position he is physically unable to move, a method of punishment 

used in Madrid’s prisons at the time. As one studies the picture, the 

eye is constantly drawn to the many shackles and chains worn by 

the prisoners, all cleverly emphasised by Goya, who has used white 

highlights to enhance our awareness of their restriction. 

It is as if both Interior of a Prison and Yard with Lunatics represent the 

impact of Goya’s stone deafness upon his senses. The insane rantings 

of those in the madhouse are symbolic of the noises and voices Goya 

could hear for a time inside his head, while the unbearable silence 

suggested within the thick walls of the prison indicate Goya’s realisation 

of his new relationship with the outside world. Like the shackled men 

slumped within the prison walls, he now shares their confinement. 

16 Don Juan Antonio Meléndez Valdés 


1797 



9 


10 

17 Imaginary Prisons; 

The Man on the Rack 

Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) 

c.1749-61 

Etching 56.4 x 42cm (plate size) 


18 The Rake in Bedlam 

The Rake’s Progress Scene 8 

William Hogarth (1697-1764) 

1735 

Etching and engraving 35.5 x 40.5cm 

The British Museum 

The oppressive archway in Interior of a Prison is reminiscent of Giovanni 

Battista Piranesi’s Imaginary Prisons of 1749-50 and reworked in 1761. 

(Fig.17) Goya would have had the opportunity to study Piranesi’s 

monumental architectural fantasies whilst he was in Rome in 1770, and 

there is even the suggestion that he shared lodgings with Piranesi in the 

Via Trinistà dei Monti during his time there. 14 

Goya’s images of the Spanish penal system have been compared 

with those of Hogarth of the 1730s in his hugely successful series, 

The Harlot’s Progress, (painted 1731, engraved 1733) and The Rake’s 

Progress (painted 1732, engraved 1735). 15 (Figs.18, 20) 

Hogarth’s work was known in Spain, through his volumes of engravings, 

and it is likely that Goya would have had opportunity to study both series 

as part of the collection of prints belonging to Sebastián Martinez whilst 

in Cadiz. 16 Where Goya differs so markedly from the English Master 

is that Hogarth offers the viewer a myriad of narrative detail, while 

Goya emphasises the desolate bleakness of his subject. In contrasting 

Hogarth’s images of Moll Hackabout, a fictional London prostitute in 

Bridewell Prison, or the wayward Tom Rakewell in Bethlehem Royal 

Hospital (Bedlam) with Goya’s Interior of a Prison, one can begin to 

appreciate how each artist visualised the plight of those who found 

themselves at the bottom of society. 

In scene four of The Harlot’s Progress, Moll is shown in Bridewell Prison, 

a house of correction for prostitutes and petty criminals, adorned in 

fine clothes within her grim confine. Hogarth uses a number of clever 

and witty narratives to emphasise how far Moll has fallen, such as the 

fellow female inmate behind her who teasingly strokes the silk and lace 

of Moll’s clothing while addressing the viewer with a wink and wry grin. 

Then look at Tom in Bedlam, stripped of his fine clothes and thereby 

his social pretensions, a sight observed by an aristocratic lady and 

her maid, paying customers to the live experience of one of London’s 

must-see sights – the lunatic asylum. Meanwhile, loyal Sarah Young, 

Tom’s lover whom he had shunned whilst with child in scene one of the 

saga, weeps by his side, knowing her former beau’s future is decidedly 

bleak. In both images however, whilst depicting the lowest levels of 

humanity, there remains some form of social structure. In scene four 

from the Harlot, men and women co-exist together; they are clothed 

and it is clearly an environment where banter and social interaction were 

commonplace. Whilst neither Bridewell nor Bedlam are places any of 

19 Letter from Goya to Iriate, dated 4 January 1794, 

British Library, London 

The letter in which Goya explained his activities during 

his recuperation from illness and the production of his 

cabinet pictures. 


12 

Hogarth’s audience would choose to be themselves, some sense 

of humanity exists. In the Rake series, Sarah weeps at Tom’s side. 

Amidst the lunacy, she nevertheless displays her sustained love 

for him, or, at the very least, feelings of deepest compassion. 

Now look at Goya’s inmates in Interior of a Prison: all male, and 

like Tom, in rags or naked, stripped of any social status that might 

once have existed. But there is no interaction between any of 

them, only silence, no knowing glances towards the spectator, no 

gallows humour. In their resigned wretchedness they no longer 

hope to receive any visitors – not even those prison tourists that 

paid to gawp at those less fortunate than themselves. These men 

are going nowhere and seeing no one. This is it. Nothing. Their 

existence is utterly devoid of love or compassion, until, eventually, 

they will be released by death. 

Hogarth and Goya differ in their approach to the depiction of 

prison life principally because Hogarth sought to entertain 

whilst Goya did not. Hogarth’s paintings for both the Harlot and 

the Rake were translated into print form for a mass audience. 

Goya’s cabinet series, as he had informed Iriate in his letter of 

4th January 1794, were intended for no one other than himself. 

But as he shared this body of new work with the Academicians 

of San Fernando, it is likely that Goya was demonstrating to his 

colleagues, as he almost certainly was to himself in the months 

beforehand, that in spite of his debilitating illness, his mind, his 

imagination, his ability for ‘caprice’, remained intact. In fact, not 

only had Goya’s mental agility and artistic ability been preserved, 

in the months of illness and recuperation he had reached greater 

heights than he had previously achieved. Certainly he sought 

approval from his fellow Academicians, but his eagerness to show 

his cabinet paintings strongly suggests that Goya, previously 

searching for a clarity of artistic direction, now knew that he had 

found it. 

Following his presentation of the cabinet pictures to the Academy, 

Goya continued his slow rehabilitation. He summed up his 

condition to Zapater in April 1794: 

“I am much the same, in so far as my health, some times 

raving with a mood that I myself cannot stand, other times, 

more tempered, as now when I take up the pen to write 

to you, and I am already tired, I can only say that Monday, 

God willing, I will go to the bullfight and I would want you 

to accompany me.” 17 

20 Moll in Bridewell Prison 

The Harlot’s Progress Scene 4 

William Hogarth (1697-1764) 

1733 

Etching and engraving 32 x 38cm 

The British Museum 

21 Letter from Goya to Iriate, dated 7 January 1794, 

British Library, London 


Clearly Goya was striving to get his personal life back to normal, although his 

permanent deafness meant that he never would. But by April 1794 Goya, in terms 

of his public life as a painter, was entering artistic maturity. Had his mystery illness 

killed him Goya would have left a body of work consisting of Rococo-inspired 

tapestry designs and genre scenes, portraits and religious imagery, which are likely 

to have made his place in Western art an interesting footnote. Goya’s work up to this 

point was effective but not extraordinary. 

As the 1790s progressed, having asserted with his Royal patrons that he was no 

longer able to work on large tapestry designs, Goya was free to concentrate on 

more personal subjects in the vein of the cabinet series. Now his individual genius 

emerged in works which emphasised the darker side of human nature, such as the 

Caprichos prints published in 1799. A series of eighty images, each satirised the 

follies of Spanish society, ridiculing human extravagance and vice. (Figs. 22, 27, 28) 

Although he had suffered greatly during his months of illness, and was left 

permanently deaf, Goya went on to be considered by his countrymen the greatest 

artist of his age, epitomised in images such as The Third of May, 1808. (Fig. 23) 

Today he is revered worldwide. 

14 

22 Obsequio á el maestro 

(Homage to the Master) 


Plate 47 from Los Caprichos 

1797-8 

Etching and aquatint 

21.5 x 14.5cm (plate size) 


23 The Third of May, 1808 


1814 



24 Catalogue d’une Riche 

Collection de Tableaux de 

l’Ecole Espagnole et des 

Ecoles d’Italie et de Flandres, 

Paris, 1862 

An original copy of the 

Conde de Quinto catalogue 

is in the archive of 

The Bowes Museum. 



15

Reading a Masterpiece 

Whilst the subject matter of the cabinet pictures differs 

widely in terms of narrative, it is their common physical scale 

that unites the paintings as a group. Goya painted each image 

on a metal sheet, plated with almost pure tin. The height 

of each sheet ranges between 42.5 and 43.5cm whilst the 

width of each sheet varies between 31.6 and 32.4cm. He also 

prepared each sheet using the same method, which was to 

cover the tin with a heavily loaded brush of beige-pink over a 

thin red ground. These strong brushmarks are clearly visible 

under the thin layers of colour in the pictures. In the darker 

pictures in the series, particularly Interior of a Prison and Yard 

with Lunatics, Goya dragged the thin layers of colour over the 

ridged surface of the preparation. 

Interior of a Prison 


1793-4 

Oil on tinplate 

42.9 x 32.7cm 


16 

Sorting the Bulls (Fig.14 detail) 

Six of the cabinet paintings are bull fighting scenes, of 

which three take place outside and three inside the bullring. 

In this scene, twenty four bulls and oxen are skilfully 

positioned at every conceivable angle. Behind them is a 

crowd, controlled by mounted guards, who have come on 

foot or carriage to see the bulls. 

The Strolling Players (Fig.15 detail) 

In composing this cabinet picture Goya freely 

sketched in pencil on the prepared surface, a 

technique he had employed introducing sketches for 

tapestry designs. The scene itself is closely related to 

the subject matter of some of Goya’s tapestry designs. 



17

Exhibited 

Madrid, Liceo Artistico y Literario, 1846 (50, lent by the Conde de Quinto); 

London, Guildhall, Spanish Exhibition, 1901 (60); 

London, Grafton Galleries, 1913-4 (178); 

London, National Gallery, Long Loan, 1920-27; 

Leeds, Masterpieces from the Collections of Yorkshire and Durham, 1936 (36); 

London, National Gallery, Spanish Painting, 1947 (10); 

New York, Wildenstein, Goya, 1950 (38); 

London, Agnew, Pictures from The Bowes Museum, 1952 (11); 

London, Tate Gallery, Council of Europe exhibition, The Romantic Movement, 1959 (11); 

London, Arts Council, Some Paintings from The Bowes Museum, 1959 (44); 

London, Arts Council, Paintings from The Bowes Museum, 1962 (50); 

Paris, Musée Jacquemart-André, Goya, 1961-2 (57); 

London, Royal Academy, Goya and his Times, 1963-4 (102); 

18 

Barnard Castle, The Bowes Museum , Four Centuries of Spanish Painting, 1967 (85); 

Bordeaux, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Paris, Grand Palais, Madrid, Prado, L’Art Européen à la Cour d’Espagne au XVIII siècle, 

1979-80 p.73 (24); 

London, National Gallery, El Greco to Goya, 1981 (73); 

Madrid, Prado, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, New York, Metropolitan Museum, Goya and the Spirit of Enlightenment, 

1989 (71); 

London, National Gallery, European Paintings from The Bowes Museum, 1993 (p.33) 

Madrid, Prado, London, Royal Academy, Chicago, Art Institute, Goya, Truth and Fantasy, The Small Paintings, 1993-4 (42); 

Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Zurich, Kunsthaus, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Das Capriccio als Kunstprinzip, 

1996-7 (30); 

Philadelphia, Museum of Art, Lille, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Goya, Another Look, 1999 (25); 

Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst, Goya’s Realisme, 2000 (32 ); 

Berlin, National Galerie, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Madrid, Prado, Goya, Prophet der Moderne, 2005-6 (31); 

Madrid, Prado, Goya in Times of War, 2008 (3); 

Edinburgh, National Galleries of Scotland, The Discovery of Spain, 2009 (p.45, pl.29, p.152). 


Literature 

A.L.Mayer in Zeitschrift für bildender Kunst, New Series, 

XXIII, 1911-12, p.104; 

A. de Beruete y Moret, Goya, Composiciones y Figuras, 

1917, p.94, pl.36; 

V. von Loga, Goya, 1921, p.209, no.433; 

A.L.Mayer, Goya, 1924, p.174, no.544; 

Sir P. Hendy, Spanish Painting, 1946, p.28; 

A.L.Mayer, Historia de la Pintura Española, 1947, pl.531; 

X. Desparmet Fitz-Gerald, L’oeuvre peinte de Goya, 1928- 

50, Vol.I, no.207, pl.162; 

T.Wake in A.Blunt & M.Whinney, The Nation’s Pictures, 

1950, p.156, pl.37a; 

E.Harris in Burlington Magazine, XCV (1953), pp.22, 23; 

J.A.Gaya Nuño, La pintura espagñola fuera de España, 

1958, p.169, no.999; 

J.Mayne in L’Oeil, no.55/56 (1959), p.17, repr.; 

M.S.Soria in Connoisseur, Aug.1961, pp.30-37; 

J.Gàllego, Goya, Revista de Arte, no.54 (1963), p.369; 

E.Young in Apollo, LXXXV (1967), p.457, fig.16; 

E. Harris, 1969, no.35; 

E.Young, The Bowes Museum, Catalogue of Spanish and 

Italian Paintings, 1970, pp.37-38, pl.8; 

J.Gudiol, Goya, 1971, p.299, no.470, fig.755 (1st ed. 

Barcelona 1970); 

P.Gassier & J. Wilson, Goya: his life and work, 1971, p.264, 

no. 929 (1st ed. Paris 1970); 

E. Young in Burlington Magazine, CXIV ( 1973), p.45; 

P.Gassier, The Drawings of Goya: the complete albums, 

1973, p.221; 

R. de Angelis, L’opera pittorica di Goya, 1974, p.125, 

no.532; 

S. Symmons, Goya, 1977, no.45; 

X. de Salas, Goya, 1979, p.183, no.271; 

P. Gassier, Goya, Das Gesamtwerk, 1980, Vol. II, p.50, 

no.517; 

P. Gassier in L’Oeil, no.136 (1981), p.80; 

J. Baticle & C.Marinas, La Galerie Espagnole de Louis- 

Philippe au Louvre, 1981, p.83, under no.102; 

G. von Gehrer in Weltkunst, 1981, p.1324; 

D.Sutton in Apollo, Oct.1981, p.126; 

Prado, Madrid,Goya en las colecciones madrilènes,1983, 

pp.162-3; 

E.Young, Catalogue of Spanish Paintings in The Bowes 

Museum, 2 ed.rev. 1988, pp.78-9; 

M. Águeda Villar in Cinco siglos de arte en Madrid (XV-XX), 

III, Jornalas de Arte, 10-12.12.1986, 1991, pp.171-4; 

M.B.Mena Marqués in Historias mortales. La vida 

cotidiana en el arte, 2004, p.257; 

N. Glendinning in Burlington Magazine, Feb. 1994, p.100; 

J. Tomlinson, Francisco Goya y Lucientes, 1746-1828, 

1994, p.202, fig.203; 

J.L. Morales y Marin, Goya, A Catalogue of his Paintings, 

1994 (English edition 1997), no.437; 

J.Wilson-Bareau, Truth and Fantasy, the small paintings, 

1994, pp.200-3; 

L.Domergue in Congreso Internacional “Goya 250 años 

despues, 1746-1996”, Marbella, 10-13.4.1996, 1996, 

pp.97-99; 

S. Dubosc, La peinture espagnole dans la collection Quinto, 

Ph.D. thesis, Paris, Sorbonne, 1997. 

Provenance 

Léonard Chopinot, Madrid, before 1800?; Angela Sulpice 

Chopinot (before 1805); Augustin Quinto?; Conde de 

Quinto, before 1846; Condesa de Quinto, her sale 

catalogue, June 1862 (48); purchased Dessenon, 

18-19 Feb. 1864 (200f) for John Bowes. [see above, under 

exhibitions: Philadelphia, Lille, 1999 (25)] 

(According to Desparmet Fitz-Gerald (op.cit.), from the 

collection of Francisco Azebal y Arriatia of Madrid. Later in 

the collection of the Conde de Quinto; Condesa de Quinto 

sale catalogue, June 1862, no.45.) 

19 



This warm and intimate picture is one of a group of portraits 

produced by Goya in the late 1790s that demonstrate his 

greatness as a portraitist. It also suggests the friendship 

that existed between Goya and his sitter who moved in the 

same liberal, intellectual circles of enlightened men known as 

‘ilustrados’. Meléndez Valdés was eight years Goya’s junior. 

He may well have met the artist at Saragossa in 1790 when he 

was a judge there. The portrait was possibly painted in the late 

spring or summer of 1797, when Meléndez was disappointed 

to not secure the post of Public Prosecutor in April that year. 

It would certainly explain the melancholic expression on his 

face. However, 1797 was also an important year for Meléndez 

Valdés, since the publication of the first important collected 

editions of his poems came out in April, while he was 

appointed Prosecutor to the Municipal authorities in Madrid 

in October. Meléndez Valdés was a passionate advocate of 

reform of the condition of Spain’s prisons and hospitals. 

Don Juan Antonio Meléndez Valdés 


1797 

Oil on canvas 

73 x 57cm 


Signed: (on the bottom of the picture): 

A Meléndez Valdés su amigo Goya 1797 

20 

Meléndez Valdés’ friend, the poet Quintana, described 

him as ‘of little more than medium height, pale and blond, 

frank of feature, strong of limb, with a robust and healthy 

complexion’. 18 Goya portrays Meléndez Valdés with an 

expression that is both spontaneous and unguarded, if 

a little pensive, emphasised by the background which is 

devoid of any distracting feature. At the base of the painting, 

impressionistically brushed over a green background, Goya 

has inscribed, ‘A Meléndez Valdés su amigo Goya 1797.’ – 

‘To Meléndez Valdés (‘from’ or ‘by’) his friend Goya 1797.’ 

His admiration for the French thinkers of the Age of Reason 

prompted Meléndez Valdés to cooperate with the regime 

of Joseph Bonaparte, who in 1808 was put on the Spanish 

throne by his brother Napoleon. Meléndez Valdés believed 

that French influence would bring about reforms essential for 

the good of Spain. Unfortunately for him, when the Spanish 

monarchy was restored in 1814 he was accused of having 

been a collaborator and was forced to leave Spain. He left, 

travelling in exile in Montpellier in France, where he died 

in poverty three years later. There are two replicas of this 

painting, one at the Banco Español de Crédito, Madrid, and the 

other in a private collection in Madrid. 

25 Gaspar de Jovellanos 


1797-98 



Jovellanos, both statesman and writer, was another of 

Goya’s circle of ‘ilustrados’ that the artist vividly captured 

on canvas in the late 1790s. 



21

Exhibited 

Madrid, Liceo Artistico y Literario, 1846 (8, lent by the Conde de Quinto); 

London, Art Gallery of the Corporation [Guildhall?], Spanish Old Masters,1913-14 (179); 

London, Burlington Fine Art Club, Spanish Art, 1928 (19a); 

Leeds, City Art Gallery, Masterpieces from the Collections of Yorkshire 

and Durham, 1936 (35); London, National Gallery, Spanish Paintings, 1947 (5); 

London, Agnew, Pictures from The Bowes Museum, 1952 (13); 

London, Royal Academy, European Masters of the Eighteenth Century, 1954-5 (356); 

London, Arts Council of Great Britain, Some Paintings from The Bowes Museum, 1959 (43); 

Paris, Musée Jacquemart-André, Goya, 1961-2 (50); 

London, Arts Council, Paintings from The Bowes Museum, 1962 (49); 

London, Royal Academy, Goya and his Times, 1963-4 (78); 

Barnard Castle, The Bowes Museum, Four Centuries of Spanish Painting, 1967 (84); 

Paris, Orangerie des Tuileries, Goya, 1970 (17); 

London, Arts Council at The Royal Academy, The Age of Neo-Classicism, 1972 (114); 

22 

London, National Gallery, El Greco to Goya, 1981 (68); 

Madrid, Prado, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, New York, Metropolitan Museum, Goya and the Spirit of Enlightenment, 

1989 (24); 

Madrid, Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, London, Royal Academy, Goya, the decade of the Caprichos, 

Portraits 1792-1804, 1992 (40); 

London, National Gallery, European Paintings from The Bowes Museum, 1993, p.33-4; 

London, Royal Academy, Art Treasures of England, the regional collections, 1998 (329); 

Madrid, Palacio Real, Enlightenment and Liberalism 1788-1814, 2008-9, p.64, p.466, no.20, p.300. 


Literature 

F. Zapater y Gómez, Apuntes Históricos, 1863, p.39; 

Conde de la Viñaza, Goya, 1887, no.54; 

Z.Araujo Sánchez, Goya, 1889, no.254; 

P.Lafond, Goya, 1903, no.163; 


A.L.Mayer in Zeitshrift für Bildende Kunst, new series XXIII, 1911-12, p.104, fig.12; 

A.L.Mayer, Geschichte der Spanischen Malerei, 1913, Vol.II, p.267; 

A. de Beruete y Moret in Revue de l’Art, Vol.XXXV, 1914, p.75; 

A. de Beruete y Moret, Goya Pintor de Retratos, 1916, p.175, no.131, p.68, pl.23; 


A. de Beruete y Moret, Goya as Portrait Painter, 1922, p.208, no.138, p.86, p.XXV; 

A.L.Mayer, Geschichte der Spanischen Malerei, 1922, p.493; 

A.L.Mayer, Francisco de Goya, 1923, p.196, no.345; 

X. Desparmet Fitz-Gerald, L’Oeuvre Peint de Goya, 1928-50, text vol.II, no.378, pl.vol.II, no.301; 

A.L.Mayer, Geschichte der Spanischen Malerei, 1947, p.527; 

T.Wake in A.Blunt & M.Whinney, The Nation’s Pictures, 1950, p.156; 

F.J.Sánchez Cantón, Vida y Obras de Goya, 1951, pp.62, 169; 

E.Harris in Burlington Magazine, Vol.XCV (1953), p.22, 23; 

E. du Gué Trapier, Goya, a Study of his Portraits, 1797-99, 1955, p.11, fig.13; 

J.A.Gaya Nuño, La Pintura Espanola fuera de Espana, 1958, p.78, 165, no.951; 

F.J.Sánchez Cantón, Life and Work of Goya, 1964, p.158; 

G. Demerson, Don Juan Meléndez Valdés et son Temps, 1962, p.205-6; 

E. du Gué Trapier, Goya and his Sitters, 1964, p.12; 

E. Young, The Bowes Museum, Catalogue of Spanish and Italian Paintings, 1970, p.35, no.26, pls.9, 46; 

P.Gassier & J.Wilson, Goya: His Life and Work, 1971, pp.135, 164, 188, no.670 (1st edition, Paris, 1970); 

J.Gudiol, Goya, 1971, Vol.I, p.281, under no.372 (1st edition, Barcelona, 1970); 

E.Young in Burlington Magazine, CXIV ( 1973), p.45; 

R. de Angelis, L’opera pittorica di Goya, 1974, p.109, no.313; 

S. Symmons, Goya, 1977, no.18 

J. Baticle in Actas del XXIII Congreso de Historia del Arte, Granada, 1978, p.25; 

E.Young, 1978, no.14; 

X. de Salas, Goya, 1979, p.184, no.279; 

P. Gassier, Goya, das Gesamtwerk, 2 vols, 1980, Vol.I, p.90, no.304; 

G. van Gehrer in Weltkunst, 1981, p.1324; 

Prado, Madrid, Goya en las colecciones madrilénes, 1983, pp.162-3; 

E.Young, Catalogue of Spanish Paintings in The Bowes Museum, 2 ed. rev., 1988, pp.74-77; 

S.Dubosc, La peinture espagnole dans la collection Quinto, Ph.D. thesis, Sorbonne, Paris,1997. 

Provenance 

Conde de Quinto 1846; Condesa de Quinto, her sale catalogue, June 1862 (46); purchased Gogué(?) for John Bowes. 

23 



Obsequio á el Maestro 

(Homage to the Master) 



1797-8 


21.5 x 14.5cm (plate size) 


24 


Obsequio á el Maestro is Plate 47 of Los Caprichos, a set 

of eighty prints executed by Goya in 1797 and 1798. The 

series, published in 1799 was the outcome of Goya’s intense 

exploration of his imagination, as opposed to seeking physical 

truth. This in itself was not new, although other artists who had 

inquired into the concept of ‘flight of fancy’ had usually applied 

it to creating architectural fantasies, such as the monumental 

Roman ruins (caprices) of French artist Hubert Robert. (Fig.26) 

Goya was certainly aware too of the light hearted capricci of 

Tiepolo, through the Italian’s presence at the Spanish court, 

and several prints from Piranesi’s series of imaginary prisons 

were in Goya’s own collection. What was new was that 

Goya chose to use the concept of capricho to expose the 

foolishness he saw in Spanish society at that time. Highlighting 

the universal follies of humanity, the series contains various 

grotesque caricatures of humanity. 

Obsequio á el Maestro pictures a group of witches surrounding 

a senior witch on the right; one witch offers to her master an 

undersized dead baby. The women present the baby to their 

teacher, from whom they have learnt everything. Like many 

plates of the Caprichos series, the image is dark and holds 

suggestions of evil; the hunched figures look goblin like and 

tormented. 

The image of kneeling figures draws parallel to the clergy; 

Goya appears to compare the witch with a grovelling postulant 

kissing a cardinal’s ring. He seems to suggest that witches 

and friars are one and the same and that there are definite 

likenesses between witchcraft and the activities of the clergy. 

It is worth noting that while Goya and his wife Josefa had 

seven children, only the seventh of these survived infancy. 

There is no doubt that Goya must have been deeply affected 

by this; perhaps the dead baby in this image reflects his loss. 

Provenance 

Harris 82, fifth edition, 1881-6. Purchased by The Bowes 

Museum from a private collection 2004. 

26 Architectural capriccio with obelisk 

Hubert Robert (1733-1808) 

1768 



27 Trágala, perro 

(Swallow it, dog) 



1797-8 


21 x 15cm (plate size) 

Trágala, perro (Swallow it, dog) was another attack on the 

Spanish clergy. A man kneels on the ground in terror, begging 

for mercy from a monk clutching a huge enema syringe. 

Around him are cackling caricatures, who await in anticipation the 

thrust of the syringe into the desperate man’s belly, in an attempt 

to flush out his orthodox beliefs. 

25 


26 


Select Bibliography 

Bowes Museum (Eric Young), Catalogue of Spanish and Italian Paintings, 1970. 

Bowes Museum (Eric Young, Elizabeth Conran) Catalogue of Spanish Paintings, second edition, 1988. 

Hallet, Mark and Riding, Christine, Hogarth, Tate Publishing, 2006. 

Hardy, Charles E. John Bowes and The Bowes Museum, 1970, reprinted 2009. 

Hughes, Robert, Goya, London, 2003. 

Goya – Truth and Fantasy, The Small Paintings (exhibition catalogue), Madrid, London, Chicago, Yale University Press, 

1994 (Juliet Wilson-Bareau, Manuela B. Mena Marqués). 

Symmons, Sarah, Goya, London, 1988. 

Tomlinson, Janis, Francisco Goya y Lucientes, 1746-1828, London, 1994. 

27 

28 Miren que grabes! (detail) 

(Look how solemn they are!) 



1799 

Etching 

21 x 15cm (plate size) 


Chronology 

28 

1746 30 March, Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes born at Fuendetodos, a small village 40km south west of 

Saragossa. Goya was one of five children of a master gilder. His mother was of aristocratic descent. 

1750s Educated in Saragossa at a Roman Catholic monastic order, Goya then became an apprentice of religious painter, 

José Luzán y Martínez. 

1761 Anton Raphael Mengs arrives in Madrid as Court Painter, followed by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo in 1762. 

1770 Tiepolo dies in Madrid. Goya travels to Italy where he studies the great masters. 

1771 25 July. Goya marries Maria Josefa, sister of painters Francisco and Ramón Bayeu. 

1775 Goya leaves Saragossa for Madrid with his family, to work under Mengs and Francisco Bayeu as a painter of 

cartoons for the Royal Tapestry Factory of Santa Barbara. Goya and Ramón Bayeu painted cartoons; full scale 

models for tapestries. 

1780 Goya elected to the Royal Academy of San Fernando, Madrid, after submitting his painting Christ on the Cross. 

1784 Birth of Goya’s seventh child, Francisco Javier Pedro, the artist’s only child to survive infancy. 

1785 Appointed Assistant Director of Painting at the Academy of San Fernando. 

1786 Appointed painter to the King, as was his brother-in-law Ramón Bayeu, although Goya continued to paint 

cartoons for the tapestry factory. 

1788 Working on sketches for tapestry cartoons. Carlos III dies in December. Carlos IV nominates Goya as Court 

Painter; he executes Royal portraits. From this point Goya establishes himself as the leading painter in Spain. 

1792 14 October. Goya’s report to the Academy on the teaching of art. At some point at the end of 1792 Goya leaves 

Madrid due to serious illness. 

1793 Goya residing with wine merchant and close friend Sebastian Martinez in Cadiz, where he encountered British 

portraiture by artists such as Reynolds, Hogarth and Ramsay. 

By June Goya leaves Cadiz heading for Madrid. 

11 July Goya attends a meeting of the Royal Academy of San Fernando. 

12 July – December. Nothing is known of Goya’s precise activities. 

1794 4 January. Goya writes to Bernardo de Iriate, the Academy’s Deputy, informing him of his series of cabinet 

paintings. His small paintings executed on tin show an interest in painting reality and its darker sides. Although 

not his established style, on 5 January Goya unveils the series before the Academicians to favourable response. 

Goya meets the Duchess of Alba for the first time. 

1796 Goya spends much of the year in Andalusia and visits the Duchess of Alba at her estate in Sanlúcar de 

Barrameda. During the summer he executed the Sanlúcar album, which depicted the Duchess and her servants 

during everyday life. Some scenes are almost erotic. 

1797 Working on the sueños prints and drawings that develop into Los Caprichos, published in 1799. These dream 

inspired drawings include themes of witchcraft. During this year Goya painted Meléndez Valdés as well as other 

portraits and a number of self portraits. 


1799 Goya was appointed First Court Painter and during this year painted two equestrian portraits of the King and 

his wife. 

1802 The Duchess of Alba dies. 

1803 Goya presents the plates of Los Caprichos to the King. ‘Capricho’ means imagination, fantasy; the series is based 

on Goya’s own thoughts and observations. 

1806 Birth of Pio Mariano, Goya’s only grandson. 

1808 French troops in Spain. Spanish Royal family relinquishes the crown to Napoleon, who puts his brother Joseph 

Bonaparte on the throne. 

2 May. Madrid uprising against the French, followed by executions of 3 May. Start of the War of Independence. 

1810 Goya begins The Disasters of War, the narrative series of etchings. Falling into three distinct parts, the series 

depicts: war scenes with rebellion of the Spanish against the French; the great famine in Madrid; and the period 

after the war – the new regime. Goya did not publish the series due to censorship. 

1812 Goya’s wife Josefa dies. 

1813 Defeat of the French by British advance led by the Duke of Wellington. Goya painted an equestrian portrait of 

Wellington for public exhibiton at the Royal Academy. 

1814 Ferdinand VII restored to power. Goya petitions Regency for funding to paint the heroic scenes of The Second of 

May 1808 and The Third of May 1808 (Prado, Madrid). 

1815 Inquisition threatens to summon Goya on account of his ‘obscene’ painting The Naked Major c.1800. Goya is 

working increasingly for himself only. Depicting the dark side of society, his themes include irrational behaviour, 

prison scenes, rape, torture and murder. 

1820 Begins the Black Paintings on the walls of his house, Quinta del Sordo, on the outskirts of Madrid. Goya dealt 

with biblical and mythological scenes with witches as well as everyday scenes. 

1824 Goya travels to Bordeaux and Paris. Returns to Bordeaux where he sets up home with Doña Leocadia Zorilla and 

her daughter (possibly his child). 

Continues to paint, draw and produce lithographs. He painted a series of miniatures in a similar style to the 

Black Paintings. 

1826 Visits Madrid to ask to be retired from his post of First Court Painter. He is granted a full pension. During his final 

years Goya concentrates mainly on drawing and etching. 

1827 Final visit to Madrid during the summer. 

1828 16 April. Dies and is buried in Bordeaux. His remains were transferred to Madrid and interred in San Antonio de la 

Florida in 1929. 

29 


Notes 

1 

For a fuller discussion of the Conde de Quinto and the Spanish paintings at The Bowes Museum see Eric Young, Catalogue of Spanish Paintings 

in the Bowes Museum, second edition, 1988, introduction by Elizabeth Conran, pp.1 - 6. This catalogue also transcribes in full, letters from 

Benjamin Gogué to John Bowes, pp. 7 -29. See also, Enriqueta Harris, Spanish Pictures from the Bowes Museum in Burlington Magazine, Vol 95, 

No 598 (Jan, 1953), pp22-25. 

2 

Catalogue d’une Riche Collection de Tableaux de l’Ecole Espagnole et des Ecoles d’Italie et de Flandres, Paris, 1862. An original copy of the 

catalogue is in the archive of The Bowes Museum. 

3 

Letter from Benjamin Gogué to John Bowes, July 1862, archive of The Bowes Museum, quoted in Young and Conran, 1988, p.4. 

4 

Interior of a Prison has been dated to later in Goya’s career by some art historians although examination of the structure of the painting has 

confirmed that it was part of the cabinet series of 1793-4. For a fuller discussion see Young, 1988, pp.80-81, and Goya – Truth and Fantasy, the 

Small Paintings (exhibition catalogue), Madrid, London, Chicago, Yale University Press, 1994 (Juliet Wilson-Bareau, Manuela B. Mena Marqués) 

pp. 200-201. 

5 

Yard with Lunatics is listed immediately below Interior of a Prison in the Conde de Quinto sale catalogue, No 49 Intérieur d’une maison de fous. 

6 

Goya’s address to the Royal Academy of San Fernando, Madrid, regarding the Method of Teaching the Visual Arts, 1792, quoted in Janis 

Tomlinson, Francisco Goya y Lucientes, 1746-1828, London, 1994, pp.306-307. 

7 

Valentin de Sambricio, Tapices de Goya, Madrid, 1946, doc. no. 159. Quoted in Tomlinson, 1994, p.93. 

8 

Francisco de Goya, MS letters to Martin Zapater 1774-99. Collection of the Prado, Madrid. Published as Cartes a Martin Zapater, Ed. Xavier de 

Salas and Mercedes Agueda, Madrid, 1982, p.211. Quoted in Robert Hughes, Goya, London, 2003, p.127. 

9 

Quoted from Truth and Fantasy, 1994, p.189. 

10 

The concept of ‘cabinet’ pictures originated from the Dutch and Flemish tradition of the study of small pictures in modest sized rooms or ‘cabinets’. 

30 

11 

Letter from Goya to Iriate, 4th January 1794, British Library, quoted from Truth and Fantasy, 1994, pp.189-90. 

12 

Goya’s statement “…it is a scene I once saw in Saragossa…”, probably relates to the large asylum in his native city. There is evidence that two of 

Goya’s relatives, an aunt and uncle, Francisca and Francisco Lucientes, were inmates of the Saragossa asylum in 1762 and 1764. It is possible that 

Goya visited them. See Peter K. Klein, ‘Insanity and Sublime: Aesthestics and Theories of Mental Illness in Goya’s Yard with Lunatics and Related 

Works’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 61, 1998, pp.198-252. 

13 

Letter from Goya to Iriate, 7th January 1794, British Library, quoted from Truth and Fantasy, 1994, p.200. 

14 

See Hughes, 2003, p.36, who cites Jeannine Baticle, L’activisté de Goya entre 1796 et 1806 vue á travers le Diario de Moratin, in Revue d’Art, 13, 

1971, p.47. 

15 

For a full discussion, see J. E. Kromm, Goya and the Asylum at Saragossa, The Society for the Social History of Medicine, 1988, pp.79-89. 

Kromm compares Hogarth’s asylum and prison scenes with Goya’s Yard with Lunatics. 

16 

For a full discussion of the popularity of English satirical prints in Spain see, Reva Wolf, Goya and the Satirical Print in England and on the 

Continent, 1730 – 1850, Boston, 1991. For specific reference to Hogarth in the collection of Sebastian Martinez see p.5. Wolf, p.9, also makes 

reference to Goya’s friend, the playwright Leandro Fernández de Moratin, who spent a year in England during 1792 and 1793 and in his travel notes 

commented on the number of shops in London selling prints and caricatures. It is therefore probable that Moratin was another source from which 

Goya could have had access to the English print masters of his day around the time he produced the cabinet pictures. 

17 

Salas and Agueda, 1982, pp.211, 218. Quoted in Tomlinson, 1994, p.94. 

18 

Manuel José Quintana, Obras completas, Madrid, 1852, p.120, Biblioteca de autores espanoles, v.19. Cited in Elizabeth du Gué Trapier, 

Goya: A Study of his Portraits 1797-99, The Hispanic Society of America, New York, 1955, p.11. 


Acknowledgements 

The idea to look closely at Goya’s Interior of a Prison has been encouraged by the most intense period 

of building redevelopment since the Museum opened in 1892. This period of work which began in 

August 2008 will be completed by the early summer of 2010. In this time we will have fully restored the 

complicated and previously leaking roof, and created a number of new facilities and galleries on each 

floor of the building. During this period we have kept the Museum open, juggling the needs of 

the collections, with those of the visitors, contractors and staff, which have all occupied the site at the 

same time. 

Before the work began we recognised that this was not going to be a time where we could implement 

large, multi-loan exhibitions, since scaffolding, cement and dust don’t mix well with objects from other 

institutions. Understandably, lenders are anxious about lending precious objects to a building site. As a 

consequence, we have taken the opportunity to study more closely important artists in the collection, 

on this occasion, Goya. 

In studying Interior of a Prison I have got to know Goya a little better than I did before, and have been 

assisted in this by some of my colleagues who have been extremely generous with their time. Howard 

Coutts, Sheila Dixon, Emma House and Viv Vallack all read and commented on the draft, while Laura 

Layfield carried out some additional research for the main text and the catalogue entries. I would also like 

to thank Elizabeth Conran, formerly curator of The Bowes Museum, who made some suggestions which 

have also improved the story that this publication seeks to tell. 

Finally, I would like to acknowledge each and every member of staff at The Bowes Museum. Throughout 

all the building redevelopment they have maintained their spirit and enthusiasm, in spite of the upheaval it 

has necessitated: the outcome of which is a magnificent 19th century building with facilities appropriate 

to the 21st century. 

31 

Adrian Jenkins 

Director, 

October 2009 

29 Portrait of a Man 

Formerly attributed to Francisco de Goya 

Oil on canvas 

43.5 x 38.1cm 


This picture sold at the sale of the Conde de 

Quinto in 1862 was believed at the time to 

be a portrait by Goya of his brother. 


32

Goya's Prison: - Red Square Design

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