Boy on a Ram
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (Spanish, 1746–1828)
1786–87
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 127.2 × 112.1 cm (50 1/16 × 44 1/8 in.); Framed: 153.7 × 138.4 × 12.7 cm (60 1/2 × 54 1/2 × 5 in.)
- Culture
- Spain
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Brooks McCormick
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
As painter to the king of Spain, Francisco de Goya also designed tapestries for the royal residences. The artist made small oil sketches to work out the designs, followed by full-scale painted cartoons that served as guides for the weavers at the king’s tapestry works. This cartoon was produced for a tapestry in a series decorating the dining room in the Palace of El Pardo outside Madrid. The room’s large panels illustrate a traditional decorative subject, the four seasons, but Goya exercised his imagination in the smaller panels above the doors, producing scenes of children and animals like this one.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
