Country Dance (Baile campestre) (sketch)

See the artistic analysis of this work and its companion piece in Majos Picnicking.

The case for Country Dance as the supposed sketch for Dance on the Banks of the Manzanares reminds us that it is true that it seems that two sketches existed for this cartoon. We know this thanks to one of the letters that Goya wrote to his good friend Martín Zapater, in which he talks of an incident involving the "old" sketch and the architect Sabatini. He says that he was originally going to send him a sketch "that was spoiled", for which reason it is believed that there must have existed a modern sketch to replace the ruined one. Years later the grandnephew of Martín Zapater, Francisco, wrote in Goya's biographical notes about the sketch, saying that "said study that is in my possession and that has been confirmed by Mr Haess, depicts a round dance: standing out in the background is the church of Saint Francis the Great". Thanks to this last detail we know that the old sketch cannot correspond to the work before us, in which there is no sign of the mentioned church.