The Dream

Around 1790 Goya was a rising court painter in Madrid, still a few years from the illness that would leave him permanently deaf and darken his later work. This quiet picture of a woman asleep, turned half away into soft shadow, is painted in muted silver greys and browns. A sleeping figure is an unusual subject for Goya, who far more often painted movement, drama and sharp expression. It may have been made for his close friend Sebastián Martínez, a wealthy merchant from Cádiz whose portrait Goya painted at about the same time. The strongest light in the whole canvas falls on the gold thread of her low-cut bodice.