Bullfight in a Divided Ring

Bullfight in a Divided Ring

Bullfight in a Divided Ring

Artist:Attributed to Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes) (Spanish, Fuendetodos 1746–1828 Bordeaux)
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:38 3/4 x 49 3/4 in. (98.4 x 126.4 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund, 1922

Goya treated the theme of bullfighting in a number of paintings, in a celebrated series of prints—the Tauromaquia, published in 1816—and in four lithographs published in Bordeaux in 1825 when he was in exile. During the mid-nineteenth century there was a brisk business in copies of Goya's popular bullfight compositions, and the use here of certain motifs that appear in Goya's other bullfight scenes has led some authorities to view our painting as a pastiche by another hand. The richness of the composition however, and the brilliant handling of the foreground crowd are worthy of Goya himself.

Provenance
Javier Goya, Madrid ("vente de Goya," location and date unknown); José de Salamanca y Mayol, Marqués de Salamanca, Madrid and Paris (by 1867–75; his sale, Paris, June 3–6, 1867, no. 178, as a pendant to "Procession in Valencia" no. 179, for Fr 3,600, bought in; his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, January 25–26, 1875, no. 13, for Fr 7,500 to Dreyfus); Auguste Dreyfus, Paris (1875–89; his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, May 29, 1889, no. 103, for Fr. 6,100); Dreyfus de Gonzalez, [Paris?] (until 1896; his sale, as "collection de M. D[reyfus] de G[onzalez]," Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, June 8, 1896, no. 2, for Fr. 4,100 to Veil Picard); Arthur Veil Picard, Paris (from 1896); [Wildenstein, Paris and New York (by 1910; for $24,000 to Leonard Thomas)]; Leonard Thomas, New York (by 1911–22; sold through Mrs. Albert Sterner to MMA)

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