A caça ao javali

This is the earliest tapestry cartoon Goya is known to have made, painted in 1775 when he was 29 and newly arrived at the royal workshops in Madrid. It is not a finished picture for a wall but a full-size pattern, handed to weavers to copy in wool. The tapestry itself was meant for the royal apartments, part of a set of hunting scenes ordered for the young prince who would become Charles the Fourth and his wife, Maria Luisa of Parma. So the Goya of the black paintings and the horrors of war is nowhere in sight yet. Here he is a careful newcomer supplying pleasant country sport, men and dogs closing in on a cornered boar with their spears.