The water carrier

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Painting: A woman carries a water jug ​​on her hip and a basket in the other hand
The water carrier
La aguadora
Francisco de Goya , 1808-1812
Oil on canvas
68 × 52 cm
Szépművészeti Múzeum , Budapest

The water carrier (original Spanish title La aguadora ) is a painting by Francisco de Goya from around 1808 to 1812. It depicts a woman of the people from Saragossa in a self-confident manner, referring to the heroic defense of the city during the Spanish War of Independence from France . The picture is exhibited in Budapest's Szépművészeti Múzeum , where it belongs to the “Old Master Paintings” collection.

Description and historical background

On the surface, the image could be attributed to genre painting , but Goya goes beyond that. The water carrier is to be understood as an allegory of the heroic defense of the city of Saragossa. According to recent research, it probably shows a real person, the Spanish folk heroine María Agustín, who brought the city's defenders no water, but brandy to cheer them up. Like the related painting The Grinder ( El afilador ) Sharpening the Weapons of the Fighters , it depicts a serious determined woman, portrayed slightly from an underneath perspective that gives her greatness and brings water to the front lines for the defenders. She has put the filled jug on her hip, and in her left hand is a basket of glasses. It is a simple activity, but Goya depicts it with dignity. The woman is painted proudly and realistically, without any erotic connotations that he often finds in other portraits of women, such as in his picture The Girls with the Mugs , a tapestry for the Study of King Charles IV , painted in a painting. According to the Spanish Goya connoisseur Manuela Mena Marqués, Goya's brushwork in this picture already indicates the expressive style of his late work. The choice of colors is already more reduced than in earlier pictures, dark brown tones and black dominate, and the lighting in the white shawl and the white hem of the petticoat symbolizes the idealized purity of the person depicted.

Goya was invited to the partially destroyed city by General José de Palafox y Melci , who organized the defense, to document the situation and to paint the “glorious deeds of its inhabitants” (Goya). It was in Zaragoza that Goya probably received the impetus to produce his series of etchings entitled The Horrors of War . The well-known equestrian image of the general was also created as a result of his visit to Saragossa.

Goya's painting was featured on a 40- fillér postage stamp from the Hungarian Post in 2010 .

The water carrier on a postage stamp

reception

  • Hugo von Tschudi assigned the pictures of the water carrier and the grinder to impressionism in his short commentary on the catalog of the Budapest Art Museum in 1883 .
  • The art historian Werner Hofmann sees a "secularization of the Christian iconography of suffering and redemption" not only in this picture. The anonymous sufferers from the people experience an increase in importance and become pathetic “martyrs and heralds of light”. In this sense, he sees the water bearer as a Rebekah who, in the Christian Old Testament , gives people and animals to drink (24 EU ).

Provenance and exhibitions

Japanese owned version

The painting was owned by Goya's son Javier in the house on Calle Valverde in Madrid in 1812. Alois Wenzel von Kaunitz-Rietberg , who was ambassador to Spain at the time, acquired it in 1815/16 together with El afilador for his private collection. In 1820 the Kaunitz collection was sold to Nikolas Esterházy before it came into the possession of the museum in Budapest in 1871. Another version of the painting is said to have been privately owned by Japanese merchants for around 40 years since 1974. In addition, Goya has used the motif again in another picture, which depicts a similar water carrier and is in inaccessible private ownership.

  • Goya and his times. 1963–1964 Royal Academy of Arts , London.
  • Spanyol Mesterk. 1965 Budapest (Spanish champions).
  • From Greco to Goya. February 20 to April 25, 1982, Künstlerhaus , Munich
  • Goya prophet of modernity. July 13 - October 3, 2005, Alte Nationalgalerie Berlin and October 18, 2005 - January 8, 2006, Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna
  • Small people, big gestures. November 2013 to March 13, 2014, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
  • Obras maestras de Budapest. Del Renacimiento a las Vanguardias February 18 to March 28, 2017, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid.

literature

  • Manuela B. Mena Marqués: La aguadora . In: Peter-Klaus Schuster, Wilfried Seipel (Hrsg.): Goya: Prophet der Moderne . DuMont-Literatur- und Kunst-Verlag, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-8321-7563-6 , p. 250 ff . (Catalog for the exhibition).
  • José María Marco: La aguadora, de Francisco de Goya . In: Una historia patriótica de España . Planeta, Barcelona 2013, ISBN 978-84-08-11215-0 (Spanish, josemariamarco.com ).

Web link

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ¿Fue María Agustín 'La aguadora' de Goya? In: El Periódico de Aragón. February 13, 2016, accessed December 7, 2018 (Spanish).
  2. ↑ Jack Malvern: Goya's water carrier was a war heroine . In: The Times . February 11, 2016 (English, co.uk ).
  3. ↑ Mena Marqués: Goya: Prophet of Modernity. 2005, p. 250 ff.
  4. ^ Hugo von Tschudi, Károly Pulszky: State painting gallery in Budapest (formerly Esterházy gallery). Volume I .: Italian and Spanish Masters by Dr. Hugo von Tschudi . Vienna 1883
  5. ↑ Werner Hofmann: An exorcist . In: Peter-Klaus Schuster, Wilfried Seipel (Hrsg.): Goya: Prophet der Moderne. DuMont-Literatur-und Kunst-Verlag, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-8321-7563-6 , p. 31
  6. ↑ La aguadora. Fundación Goya en Aragón, November 25, 2011, accessed December 7, 2018 (Spanish).
  7. ↑ Global 4-year research project reveals major discoveries in Goya masterpiece “La Aguadora”. artdaily.com, accessed December 7, 2018 .
  8. ↑ Goya –348– la Aguadora. Propiedad Particular. bvpb.mcu.es.
  9. ↑ Goya –348– la Aguadora. Propiedad Particular. bvpb.mcu.es.
  10. ↑ Francisco de Goya as a guest at the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. In: StuttgartPost. November 3, 2013, accessed December 7, 2018 .
  11. ↑ Obras de maestras Budapest. Del Renacimiento a las Vanguardias. (PDF) museothyssen.org, 2017, accessed December 7, 2018 .