El Bebedor

The present picture is after the original by Goya in the Prado, Madrid. Painted as a sketch for one of a series of tapestries, Goya presented his bill on 12 August 1777 with the following description: 'The third represents one who is drinking with a Catalan wineskin and a boy at his side (both are seated), eating a radish and half a loaf of bread, behind which are three figures who are walking along the path...It is worth one thousand five hundred reales de velln'.

Before the death of Charles III in 1789, two tapestries were woven following this model. One hung in the Dining Room of the Infante in El Pardo, the hunting palace built for Charles III outside Madrid, the second in the Dining Room of the Prince and Princess of Asturias, in the same palace.