# Saturn Devouring His Son > Francisco de Goya y Lucientes - c. 1820-1823 (mural); transferred to canvas from 1874, before the 1878 Paris exhibition > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/francisco-goya/goya-saturn-devouring-his-son-prado/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-10-08 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Francisco de Goya y Lucientes - **Date:** c. 1820-1823 (mural); transferred to canvas from 1874, before the 1878 Paris exhibition - **Medium:** Oil on plaster, transferred to canvas - **Dimensions:** 143.5 x 81.4 cm (81.5 cm in the Fundacion Goya en Aragon catalogue) - **Object type:** Painting - **Period:** Spanish, early nineteenth century - **Current location:** Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary Goya painted Saturn Devouring His Son on the plaster wall of the ground-floor dining room of his country house outside Madrid, probably between 1820 and 1823, after buying the house on 27 February 1819. It is one of the best known of the fourteen Black Paintings, a headless adult body gripped and eaten by a wild-eyed old man, and the picture the Prado shows today is not that wall: it is the paint layer lifted from the plaster from 1874 and mounted on canvas, with the white ground lost and the eyes repainted.The house passed from Goya to his grandson Mariano in 1823 and to Javier in 1830, then through several owners including Colmenares, Coumont and Saulnier to the banker Baron Frederic Emile d'Erlanger, who paid Salvador Martinez Cubells to lift the murals, showed them in Paris in 1878 and gave them to the Spanish state by a decree of 20 December 1881, asking no money. In 2003 Juan Jose Junquera argued that the Black Paintings could not be by Goya and raised the possibility that his son Javier painted them; Nigel Glendinning answered point by point in 2004 and the Prado kept the attribution to Goya.No sale of the transferred canvas, by auction or otherwise, is recorded in the sources opened; the house with the murals still on its walls was offered at public auction in 1858-59. Its meaning is argued, not documented: Goya left no word on it, and readings by Nordstrom, Glendinning, Licht, Ciofalo and others are recorded here as theirs. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **27 Feb 1819-c. 1823-24** Francisco de Goya, painter `[disputed]` (origin) The paint layer was applied to the plaster wall of the ground-floor room of the Quinta del Sordo after Goya bought the house on 27 February 1819 (the earliest possible date) and before he left for Bordeaux in 1824. Catalogues give about 1820-23; recent research, in Spanish Wikipedia's summary, extends it to the first months of 1824. The authorship was challenged in 2003 by Junquera, who proposed Goya's son Javier; the Prado, Glendinning, Mena and the Fundacion Goya en Aragon keep the attribution to Goya. - **27 Feb 1819-Sept 1823** Francisco de Goya `[documented]` (purchase) Bought the house from Pedro Marcelino Blanco by a deed of 27 February 1819 (Madrid notarial archive, protocol of Miguel Calvo Garcia), cited by Sanchez Canton in 1946 and by Glendinning. The price is not recorded in the sources opened. - **Sept 1823-1830** Pio Mariano de Goya, grandson of the painter `[documented]` (gift) Goya conveyed the house to his grandson by a deed of September 1823 (protocol of Antonio Lopez de Salazar, cited by Foradada), a measure Foradada reads as protection against confiscation. Mariano was left in charge of the house when Goya went to France. - **1830-1854** Francisco Javier de Goya, son of the painter `[documented]` (transfer) Mariano passed the house to his father in 1830. In 1832 Javier, described as a landowner and farmer, mortgaged one of his houses to pay for farming the Huerta de Goya (Glendinning). He died in 1854. - **1854-1859** Pio Mariano de Goya `[documented]` (inheritance) Mariano took the property back on his father's death and tried to sell it, failing for some years. A lease of January 1857 and a sale of the property for which no bidders came are in the notarial record cited by Junquera. The Brugada inventory is not part of this chain. - **1 Jun 1859-1863** Segundo Colmenares, property developer `[documented]` (purchase) Glendinning cites a register entry of 1 June 1859 recording Colmenares's purchase; Foradada gives the same contract date and also an auction on 12 April 1858. Junquera and Spanish Wikipedia describe failed auctions in 1859 before Colmenares bought. Colmenares paid 470,908 reales for the lands in the district, according to Foradada. - **1863-1866 or later** Luis Rodolphe Coumont, Belgian financier `[documented]` (purchase) Foradada cites a deed of 23 November 1863 for Coumont's purchase of Colmenares's lands, which he puts at more than five million reales. Yriarte named Coumont as owner in 1867 and says Coumont had the paintings photographed. Yriarte says he looked after the frescoes with the care of an amateur. - **1866-1873** Baron Charles Saulnier `[disputed]` (purchase) Foradada says the French baron Saulnier bought the lands in 1866 and sold to d'Erlanger in 1873, receiving Pierre Leonce Imbert in 1873. That sits uneasily with Yriarte's 1867 text, which names Coumont as the owner; the exact dates of the two men's tenure are not established in the sources opened. - **1873-1881** Baron Frederic Emile d'Erlanger, banker `[disputed]` (purchase) Bought the house in 1873 according to Foradada and the Fundacion Goya en Aragon; Spanish Wikipedia gives 1873 and English Wikipedia 1874. He commissioned Salvador Martinez Cubells to lift the paintings from 1874; the Saturn's own date of transfer is not recorded. Price paid not recorded. - **1874-by 1878** Baron d'Erlanger (through Martinez Cubells) `[documented]` (transfer of support) The mural was removed from its plaster and mounted on canvas (Spanish Wikipedia's Quinta article gives 1874-76 for the lifting; no source gives an end date for this canvas), with loss of the white ground and repainting where paint was missing, the eyes among the worst-damaged areas. The wing that held the paintings was pulled down about 1876. - **20 May 1878-10 Nov 1878** Baron d'Erlanger `[documented]` (exhibition) Shown in the Spanish section of the Palais du Trocadero at the Exposition Universelle, Paris. Hamerton, in 1879, described Saturn devouring his children among the pictures shown. Whether the baron meant to sell is disputed, and no sale or offer is recorded. - **20 Dec 1881-present** Spanish State, Museo Nacional del Prado `[documented]` (gift) Given by d'Erlanger to the Spanish state by Royal Decree of 20 December 1881, without payment according to Foradada. Ten of the fourteen paintings went to the Prado and four to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers until an authorisation of 3 February 1898; which group included the Saturn is not stated in the sources opened. Inventory P000763. The Prado's own entry could not be opened. No sale of the canvas is recorded after the gift of 1881. Before the transfer, the property carrying the mural was put to public auction (Foradada: bought by Colmenares at auction on 12 April 1858; Junquera: failed auctions in 1859). ## Open questions - What title does the Brugada inventory give the Saturn, and when, by whom and for whom was it made? The inventory survives only as a partial copy by Desparmet Fitz-Gerald (published 1928) with its first page missing, and is dated variously to 1823 (Baticle), 1828 (Fauque and Villanueva), before Goya's death (Glendinning) and the 1870s or later (Junquera). - Which side of the end wall did the Saturn occupy, to the left of the window as Foradada argues or the right as Gowing and Glendinning argue? - When was the Saturn finished: about 1820, 1823 or the first months of 1824, as recent research is summarised in Spanish Wikipedia? Nothing dates it by document. - What did Carmen Garrido's 1984 technical study (radiographs and micro-samples, Boletin del Museo del Prado 5) sample on the Saturn, and was the earlier painting beneath it Goya's own? I did not read the study. - On what day after 1874 was the Saturn lifted from the wall, by whom, at what cost and what exactly did Martinez Cubells repaint beyond the eyes? - Did the mural show details now absent from the canvas, as Olszewski and Hughes are said to claim, and if so were they removed at the baron's request or lost in the transfer? - Were the Laurent photographs of the Saturn taken in the mid-1860s, in 1874 or after 1881, as Glendinning, the Commons record and Junquera respectively argue? - Was the Saturn among the ten pictures that went to the Prado in 1881 or the four held by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers until 1898, and when was it first shown? - Why do the standard digital reproductions have a height-to-width ratio near 1.83 when the catalogue dimensions give 1.76? - Did the physical painting travel to Boston in 2014 or Lille in 2021, as the Fundacion Goya en Aragon exhibition fields list, or did only reproductions go? ## Sources - [1] Fundacion Goya en Aragon, online catalogue entry 'Saturn Devouring One of His Children (Saturno devorando a un hijo)', record 660 (Prado inventory P00763; dimensions, technique, artistic analysis, conservation, exhibitions, bibliography). Catalogue record revised 16 May 2024 per the page. - [2] Fundacion Goya en Aragon, online catalogue entry 'Leocadia (La Leocadia)', record 654 (shared history text for the whole Black Paintings series: purchase, Mariano, d'Erlanger, 1878 Exposition, Royal Decree of 20 December 1881, the Brugada inventory and Yriarte as sources for the arrangement, restoration of the companion mural). - [3] Nigel Glendinning, 'Las Pinturas Negras de Goya y la Quinta del Sordo. Precisiones sobre las teorias de Juan Jose Junquera', Archivo Espanol de Arte, LXXVII, 2004, no. 307, pp. 233-245 (CSIC open access PDF). - [4] Juan Jose Junquera, 'Los Goya: de la Quinta a Burdeos y vuelta', Archivo Espanol de Arte, LXXVI, 2003, no. 304, pp. 353-370, doi 10.3989/aearte.2003.v76.i304.263 (CSIC open access PDF). - [5] Carlos Foradada Baldellou, 'El interior de la Quinta del Sordo. Las Pinturas negras de Goya y la maqueta de Leon Gil de Palacio', AACA Digital (Asociacion Aragonesa de Criticos de Arte), no. 46, 2019 (University of Zaragoza repository PDF). - [6] Charles Yriarte, Goya: sa biographie, les fresques, les toiles, les tapisseries, les eaux-fortes et le catalogue de l'oeuvre, Paris, Henri Plon, 1867, chapter 'La maison de Goya' (pp. 91-96) and the engraving 'Le Saturne' (Internet Archive full text, University of Toronto copy). - [7] The Art Newspaper, 'Doubts cast on authorship of Goya's Black Paintings', 31 May 2003 (reports Junquera's claim, the Prado's response and Juliet Wilson-Bareau's comment). - [8] Stephen Phelan, 'Goya's Black Paintings: Some people can hardly even look at them', The Guardian, 30 January 2019 (interviews with Teresa Vega and Manuela Mena; Hamerton's 1878-79 reaction; the d'Erlanger transfer). - [9] Wikipedia (English), 'Saturn Devouring His Son'. Tertiary source, used for the summary of Licht, Ciofalo, Olszewski and Hughes; to be replaced by those books read directly. - [10] Wikipedia (English), 'Black Paintings'. Tertiary source, used for the summary of the series, the Brugada inventory, the room plan and the Junquera and Glendinning exchange. - [11] Wikipedia (Spanish), 'Pinturas negras'. Tertiary source, used for the summary of Foradada's room research, Malraux (1950), Foldenyi (2008), the 1898 display claim and the early landscapes under the murals; to be replaced by the cited books. - [12] Wikipedia (Spanish), 'Quinta del Sordo'. Tertiary source, used for the demolition dates, the Laurent negatives held at the Archivo Ruiz Vernacci and the loss of the fifteenth painting. - [13] Wikipedia (Spanish), 'Salvador Martinez Cubells'. Tertiary source, used for his dates (1845-1914), his post as first restorer of the Prado from 1869 and the 1875 count of four transferred murals. - [14] Wikipedia (English), 'Frederic Emile d'Erlanger'. Tertiary source, used for his birth (Frankfurt, 1832), banking career and move to London in 1870. - [15] Wikidata item Q1150997 'Saturn Devouring His Son' (inventory number P000763 at the Museo del Prado, 143.5 x 81.4 cm, Spanish title 'Saturno devorando a un hijo', location from 1881). - [16] Jay Scott Morgan, 'The Mystery of Goya's Saturn', New England Review (volume 22, no. 3 per the page address). A personal essay, used only for what it reports (the 1796-97 chalk drawing, the landscapes beneath the Black Paintings, the Zapater and Soler letters) and for its own reading. - [17] Wikipedia (English), 'Self-Portrait with Dr Arrieta'. Tertiary source for the Spanish inscription and its translation (Minneapolis Institute of Art). - [18] Wikipedia (English), 'Saturn (Rubens)'. Tertiary source for Rubens's Saturn (Torre de la Parada, Prado); to be replaced by the Prado catalogue entry, which could not be opened. - [19] Wikipedia (English), 'Francisco Goya'. Tertiary source for dates and the outline of the late years. - [20] Wikimedia Commons file page, J. Laurent, photograph of the Saturn mural on the wall of the Quinta, with the printed label 'F. GOYA.-2577.-Saturne devorant un de ses enfants (au Musee du Prado)' (Fototeca del Patrimonio Historico, VN-03194 P; licence CC BY-SA 2.5 es). - [21] Wikimedia Commons file page, 'Le Saturne' (1867 print after a photograph, signed Ferat and Maurand, from Yriarte 1867; public domain). - [22] Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, exhibition page 'Goya: Order and Disorder', 12 October 2014 to 19 January 2015 (checked for a loan of the Saturn; the page does not name it). - [23] Wikipedia (Spanish), 'Saturno devorando a su hijo'. Tertiary source for the strappo method, the 1889 display date, the traditional reading as Time and the Barragan reading (2022). - [24] Wikimedia Commons file page for the lead plate, 'Francisco de Goya, Saturno devorando a su hijo (1819-1823).jpg' (public domain, 1661 x 3051 px). --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.