Goya and 18th Century Painting (from Prado Museum)

More than 140 paintings by Francisco de Goya offer the visitor to the Prado the chance to analyse the artist’s development in considerable depth. Goya’s art arises from the Spanish tradition and Velázquez was his master, as he himself said. Goya was a brilliant and unique artist on a level with the other great masters of painting and far above his contemporaries in Spain. Among the most important works by the artist in the collection of the Museo del Prado are the tapestry cartoons The Parasol and The Crockery Vendor, and portraits of The Duke and Duchess of Osuna and their Children, The Countess of Chinchón, Don Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, The Family of Charles IV and The Marchioness of Santa Cruz. In addition there are the two Maja paintings, which have acquired near-iconic status. Goya as a history painter is represented by major works such as The Assault on the Mamelukes and The Executions on Príncipe Pío, better known as The Second and Third of May, respectively. Among works from the last two periods of Goya’s career are the Black Paintings, executed in Madrid, and The Milkmaid of Bordeaux, which the artist completed during his final years when he lived in that French city.

Also forming part of the 18th-century Spanish collection is a large group of still lifes by Luis Meléndez; small, cabinet paintings by Paret y Alcázar such as The Masked Ball and Charles III eating before the Court; tapestry cartoons by the Bayeu brothers; and other interesting paintings such as Antonio Carnicero’s The Ascent of a Montgolfier Balloon in Aranjuez.