Harassed cat

Harassed Cat from 1788 is one of Goya's later tapestry cartoons, from the penultimate series he produced for the royal apartments before his appointment as First Court Painter in 1789. The subject of boys tormenting a cat — a common childhood cruelty treated as play — introduces an undertone of gratuitous violence into the decorative programme that Goya had otherwise kept resolutely festive. His growing discomfort with picturing violence as entertainment, however supposedly innocent, anticipates the more direct treatment of cruelty in his post-illness private works and eventually the Disasters of War. The cartoon's extreme vertical format — 42 by 15 cm — suggests it was designed to fill a narrow architectural space, perhaps a door panel or window surround. The date, immediately before his illness, places this at the last moment of his uncomplicated decorative manner; within five years, the same subject of pain and cruelty would find expression in very different artistic contexts.

Goya renders the scene with characteristic energy and a palette appropriate for tapestry, while the subject of animal harassment hints at the darker vision that would emerge in his later works.