I poveri alla fontana

Goya painted this to be turned into a tapestry, one of a set meant to hang in the dining room of the future king of Spain at El Pardo, the royal palace just outside Madrid. That makes the subject a strange choice. A mother in a thin shawl stands at a fountain in the dead of winter with two small children. One boy holds his hands inside his jacket to keep them from freezing. Goya had spent years designing cheerful scenes of picnics and games for the court. Here, around 1786, the tone cools. The palette turns grey and cold, the landscape is bare, and the people are poor rather than playful. It was still meant to be woven in wool and mounted on a palace wall, where royal children took their meals.