Agriculture

Agriculture from 1804, in the Prado, is one of the allegorical roundels Goya painted for the palace of Manuel de Godoy, the powerful Prime Minister who was one of his most important and complex patrons during the years of his greatest influence. The allegorical programme — Agriculture representing the foundational economic activity of Spanish society — was part of a decorative ensemble for Godoy's official residence that reflected the Enlightenment preoccupation with agrarian reform. Godoy's association with Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, the great Enlightenment reformer who had written influentially on agrarian economics, gave the agricultural allegory a specific political-intellectual resonance within his household. Goya's relationship with Godoy was complicated: the Prime Minister collected his most controversial works including La Maja Desnuda and was a generous patron, but his political collapse in 1808 as a target of popular contempt created difficulties for all those associated with him. The Prado's collection preserves this allegory alongside Goya's more overtly personal works from the same period.

Goya renders the allegorical figure with characteristic energy and the confident handling of his mature decorative style, using warm tones and vigorous composition to personify agricultural abundance.