children inflating a bladder

This is not a finished easel painting but a full-size design, a cartoon, that Goya painted in 1778 for the royal tapestry weavers in Madrid. The woven version was meant to hang over a door in the dining room of the prince and princess who would become Carlos IV and María Luisa. Goya was in his early 30s, newly arrived at court and still proving himself, so the brief was cheerful and safe, children of a comfortable family blowing up an animal bladder like a balloon while their nurses talk behind them. He shaped it to be read from below and from a distance, which is why the figures sit high and the sky opens up so much room. It is one of his first real attempts at the world of children, decades before his darker court and war pictures.