La Tempête de neige (L'Hiver)

Goya designed this in 1786 and 1787 as a pattern for a tapestry, one of a set on the four seasons meant to hang in a royal dining room at the El Pardo palace outside Madrid. Tapestry cartoons were supposed to be pleasant and decorative. Goya's Winter is not. For a room meant to entertain a prince at dinner, he sent in a scene of hardship, three men and a boy pushing through deep snow against a hard wind, wrapped in blankets, one of them bent almost double. Behind them a mule carries the stiff body of a freshly slaughtered pig to be salted for the winter. A dog trails at their heels with its head down.