Rounding up the bulls

Among Goya's contributions to the Royal Tapestry Factory at Santa Bárbara, Rounding Up the Bulls stands as one of the most technically assured of his bullfighting cartoons from 1787. These festive scenes were commissioned to adorn the hunting lodges and royal residences of the Spanish Bourbon court, where genre subjects from popular life were prized over grander academic themes. Goya had been working for the factory since 1775 and had gradually shifted from purely decorative confections toward scenes with genuine observation and social texture. His fascination with bullfighting was personal as well as professional — he attended corridas throughout his life and later devoted a complete series of prints, the Tauromaquia of 1816, to its rituals. In 1787, however, the mood is light and the palette sun-drenched, far from the darkness that would overtake his art in the following decades. Contemporaries at court such as Francisco Bayeu were producing similar tapestry designs, but Goya's distinctive handling of crowd movement and spatial depth already set him apart from his brother-in-law and rival.

Goya renders the bull-herding scene with characteristic dynamic energy, using the powerful animals and active horsemen to create a composition of vivid movement and Spanish pastoral drama.