Technically brilliant, irreverent, ironic, satirical, sarcastic and bitter, Goya’s “Black Paintings” are some of the most extraordinary works in the history of art. They originally decorated the rooms of his house, the Quinta del Sordo (Villa of the Deaf), near the Manzanares River and were produced while he was recovering from a serious illness. In 1873 the then owner of the Quinta, Baron d’Erlanger, had the paintings transferred to canvas and donated them to the Prado Museum. What these 14 paintings have in common, apart from the uniformly sombre colour scheme, is a preoccupation with corruption, human misery, sickness and death. The key to the series is the terrifying Saturn Devouring his Son, which is based on a painting by Rubens, but in which the god is transformed from a Baroque hero to the incarnation of evil. Even San Isidro Fair, which features Goya himself, is almost a travesty of his earlier depiction of the festival, and reveals how far he had travelled as man and artist over the years.

Portrait of Francisco Goya