Piquenique campestre

In the 1780s Goya was turning out cheerful designs of Spanish everyday life to be woven into tapestries for the royal palaces. This small picture belongs to that world. A few young men in the flashy dress of Madrid's majos lounge on the ground with women, a wine bottle out, on open ground outside the city. One man leans in and talks while the others watch, and the mood is easy and a little flirtatious. Scenes like this were exactly what Charles the Third wanted on his walls, ordinary Spaniards at their leisure rather than gods and battles. A pale range of hills closes off the distance behind them.