Francisco de Goya Circle

Circle of FRANCISCO DE GOYA Y LUCIENTES (Fuendetodos, Zaragoza, 1746 - Bordeaux, France, 1828).
"The dream of St. Joseph".
Oil on panel. Cradled.
It presents faults and restorations on the pictorial surface.
It has a frame from the end of the XVII century.
Measurements: 71 x 52,5 cm; 80 x 62 cm (frame).
The technical and stylistic characteristics of this work bring us closer to the painting of the master Goya, specifically to the work "El sueño de san José" that the artist painted for the Oratorio de los Condes de Sobradie. Both pieces have the same theme, although in this case the celestial plane is developed to a greater extent in the composition. Furthermore, in this painting the figure of the Virgin is not represented, a feature that gives greater prominence to St. Joseph, whose pictorial treatment shows us a man of greater maturity. According to the words of the Goya Foundation in Aragon "The set to which "The Dream of St. Joseph" belonged, consisted of seven compositions, was commissioned by Joaquín Cayetano Cavero Ahones y Pueyo de la Sierra (1735-1788), Count of Sobradiel, to decorate the walls and ceiling of the oratory of his palace in Zaragoza, located in the Plaza del Justicia and current headquarters of the Illustrious College of Notaries of Aragon. It was Ricardo del Arco who reported the discovery of the paintings in 1915, when they were still in situ, and attributed them for the first time to Goya. Probably around 1921 and in any case before 1926, for unknown reasons, the paintings were removed and converted to canvas by order of Joaquín Cavero Sichar y Álvarez de Toledo, first Count of Gabarda, to whose property the palace had passed by marriage to his cousin-sister Mª. Teresa Cavero Alcíbar, daughter of the Count of Sobradiel. After the Count's death, the seven paintings were part of the Exhibition of Goya's works and objects that recall the artistic manufactures of his time, organized by the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Luis and which took place in 1928 in the Museum of Zaragoza, being this the first and last time they could be seen together. The scene is composed by parallel diagonals of notorious rigidity and repeats with slight variations the model devised by the French painter Simon Vouet (1590-1649) for a missing picture painted around 1638, in oil on panel, as part of the decoration of the chapel d'Hachères in the church des Feuillants in the rue Saint-Honoré in Paris, which the author could know through the engraved version of Michel Dorigny".
By 1790 Goya enjoyed a privileged position at the Spanish court, and his works for the Royal Tapestry Factory of Santa Barbara were admired and recognized by the painters of the capital. It is in this context that the work presented here is situated, a reflection of the influence that Goya's tapestry cartoons exerted on his contemporaries. Although it is not usual in the master's works, here a scene of a religious nature is narrated. From the reign of Charles III onwards, painters would strive to represent typically Spanish motifs, in line with the picturesque style of the theatrical sainetes of Ramón de la Cruz or the popular prints of Juan de la Cruz Cano y Olmedilla. However, in the formal aspect the influence of Goya is direct; abandoning the strict classicist, draftsmanlike and rigorous academicism, in works such as this one a strictly modern language is developed, of loose and undone invoice, focusing the painters not only in describing, but above all in capturing the atmospheric, luminous and chromatic impressions.