Stillleben mit Früchten, Flaschen und Broten

Goya's still lifes come from a short stretch of his life and a bad time in it. 12 of them are listed in the inventory drawn up in 1812, when his house in Madrid was divided after his wife died and the occupied city was going hungry. Most of that group is butchery, a plucked turkey, a sheep's head and ribs, dead woodcock laid out on bare wood. This one is the exception. There is no dead animal in it at all, only three bottles and a small cask, a basket with grapes, pears and figs, bread, cheese and cut meat on a white cloth. Specialists still disagree about when he painted it, some keeping it with the Madrid group and others placing it a dozen years later among the works of his last years in Bordeaux.