The Boar Hunt

Goya's Boar Hunt from 1775 belongs to his first series of tapestry cartoons, commissioned for the apartments of the Prince and Princess of Asturias at the Pardo Palace. The hunting subject was a natural choice for the royal apartments: hunting was the Spanish Bourbon court's primary outdoor entertainment, and Charles III in particular was an enthusiastic huntsman who spent much of his leisure time pursuing boar, stag, and partridge. The boar hunt was the most dangerous of the royal sports, involving mounted riders, foot hunters, and hounds working in coordinated pursuit of a large and aggressive quarry, and Goya depicted the moment of the kill with the energy and compositional confidence of a painter who had studied animal subjects carefully. These early hunting cartoons established his credentials as a competent handler of complex outdoor scenes and paved the way for the more personally expressive work of the later cartoon series. The Royal Palace of Madrid's collection holds numerous works from Goya's court career alongside this early hunting scene.

The dynamic composition captures the violent moment of the boar's confrontation with the hunters. Goya's handling of the animals' movement and the riders' tension demonstrates his early mastery of action painting within the decorative tapestry cartoon format.