the Rendezvous

In the winter of 1779 Goya was a young painter still making his name at court, working through a set of cartoons for the antechamber of the prince and princess of Asturias at El Pardo. He delivered this one in January 1780 and described it himself on the invoice: a seated woman resting on a terrace, two figures behind her watching her sadness, and four more in the distance. She sits with her head propped on her hand, the old pose for melancholy, in silver-buckled shoes and a blue mantle, holding a handkerchief that Goya's own note tells us is damp with tears.