José Costa y Bonells, llamado Pepito

Goya painted this boy around 1810, in the middle of a brutal war. French troops held much of Spain, and in private Goya was recording its horrors in the etchings we now call the Disasters of War. Pepito was the young son of King Ferdinand's personal doctor, and at first glance this is simply a tender portrait of a child in a white suit with his pets and playthings. Then look at the toys. The little suit is cut like a soldier's uniform, and among the objects are a drum and a toy rifle with the bayonet fixed. Even into a Madrid nursery, the war of those years had crept.