Goya [antikvár]

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes was bom to Gracia Lucientes on March 30, 1746, in a small house on a narrow and dusty street in Fuendetodos, Spain. The home in Fuendetodos, a poor agricultural village amid rocky hills in one of Aragon's most deserted and dry regions, was temporary, and the great painter's childhood years were passed in Saragossa. There his father, José Goya, had a modest gilder's shop and his grandfather had been a notary, though the origins of the family were Basque. In Saragossa, young Goya attended Father Joaquin's school, where he formed a close friendship with Martin Zapater. The copious correspondence between these two friends, though inadequately pubhshed, provides one of the basic sources for our present knowledge of Goya's personality. Unfortunately, facts relating to the painter's earliest years are not very plentiful. They have been gathered from a spoken tradition, from writings dating shortly after his death, and from casual references in the Zapater correspondence. At thirteen or fourteen, Goya became an apprentice in the studio of José Luzán, a dexterous painter who regularly produced the large religious canvases that were part of ecclesiastical decoration during the final years of the Baroque. Saragossa, seat of the Archbishopric, was always the artistic center of far-fltmg Aragon. From htmdreds of small towns buyers came to Saragossa's art workshops—as they come even today—seeking sumptuous I. THE HOLY FAMILY. Before r77i. Oil on canvas. Collection Simonsen, Geneva