Follower of Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes

Don Narciso de Salabert y Piñedo, VII Marqués de la Torrecilla (1830–85), Madrid;
Thence by inheritance to his daughter, Dña María de los Dolores de Salabert y Arteaga, IX Marquesa de la Torre de Esteban Hambrán, Condesa Viuda de Torre Arias (1862–1942), married to Don Ildefonso Pérez de Guzmán el Bueno y Gordón, IX Marqués de Santa Marta, VI Conde de Torre Arias (1862–1936), Madrid;
Transferred by the Junta de Incautación y Protección del Patrimonio Artistico to the Museo de Arte Moderno, Madrid, inv. no. 11, 1936–1942, when returned to la Condesa Viuda de Torre Arias;
Thence by inheritance to the present owners.

Paris, Musée Jacquemart-André, Francisco Goya y Lucientes, 1746–1828. Rétrospective, December 1961 – February 1962, no. 86 (as dating to 1819). 

Probably A. de Beruete y Moret, Goya. Composiciones y figuras, vol. II, Madrid 1917, p. 169, cat. no. 233 (as Goya);
X. Desparmet Fitz-Gerald, L'Œuvre peint de Goya, Paris 1928–50, vol. I, p. 285, cat. no. 264, reproduced plate 209 (as Goya);
P. Gassier and J. Wilson, Goya. His life and work, London 1971, pp. 254 and 264, cat. no. 928, reproduced;
R. de Angelis (ed.), Goya, Milan 1974, p. 125, cat. no. 531, reproduced p. 124 (as Goya).

This composition, undoubtedly related to the large, upright painting of the same subject traditionally attributed to Goya in the Frick Collection, New York,¹ is known in a more loosely-painted version on tinplate in the Masaveu collection, Asturias (ex-collection Elosúa, Bilbao),² of which a more roughly-brushed replica on canvas has been documented in a private collection (Pujol-Xicoy Gimferrer, Barcelona).

On the basis of photographs, it is difficult to discern which of the tinplates may precede the other. The Masaveu painting is catalogued by Gudiol as dating to circa 1813–18, as a possible sketch for the Frick picture. Gassier and Wilson place the present work slightly earlier, dating it to circa 1808–14 in relation to the series of paintings that depict 'savages',³ and De Angelis compares it to the 'Disasters of War' paintings of circa 1810–12 on stylistic grounds.⁴ The grainy paint surface of this picture is notable as a quality found in many works by Goya himself, which suggests that it was painted by someone in or from his studio.

The similarities between this and the Masaveu version has led to some confusion amongst scholars over the provenance and literature references for each painting. The present painting was formerly in the collection of the Marqués de la Torrecilla, along with another painting on tinplate, dated to circa 1812–20 depicting The Mass of the Newborns, sold in these rooms, 29 April 2015, lot 592.⁵ A small upright painting of a forge by Goya's follower Leonardo Alenza (1807–1845), rendered very loosely and dated to circa 1835, is in the Museo Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid (inv. no. 2344). 

1. Inv. no. 1914.1.65; see also the related drawing in Album F (‘Sepia Album’) p. 51, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 35.103.32.
2. A. E. Peréz Sánchez, in Obras Maestras de la Coleccion Masaveu, exhibition catalogue, Madrid 1989, p. 102, cat. no. 37, reproduced in colour p. 103.
3. See Gassier Wilson 1971, cat. nos 922–27.
4. See De Angelis 1974, cat. nos 521–26.
5. See Gassier and Wilson 1971, pp. 256–57 and 267, cat. no. 976, reproduced.