Self-portrait with Dr Arrieta

Goya painted this remarkable double portrait in 1820 as an ex-voto thanking his physician Eugenio García Arrieta for saving his life during a severe illness in late 1819. The inscription at the bottom, written by Goya himself, confirms this purpose. The painter depicts himself as an ailing, semi-conscious figure supported by the attentive doctor who offers him a glass of medicine. Dark, spectral figures loom in the background, suggesting death's proximity. The painting's raw emotional honesty prefigures the Black Paintings Goya would begin shortly afterward on the walls of the Quinta del Sordo. It now hangs at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, a testament to Goya's ability to transform personal crisis into universal art.

Goya contrasts the warm flesh tones of the two figures with the dark, nightmarish background where spectral forms lurk. The broad brushwork and the unflinching depiction of his own weakness create a painting of extraordinary psychological power and human honesty.