The Wedding (sketch)

Three possible sketches for this cartoon have been mentioned. In a letter Goya wrote to Bayeu in 1791, reference is made to a "sketch of the largest painting for the King's room, in the Royal Palace of San Lorenzo", but we do not know which of the three the artist was referring to.

The composition of this sketch matches that of the cartoon and the other two supposed sketches in terms of the figures, but there is an important difference: the bridge that frames the wedding group is missing here, replaced by a group of trees and the wall of what appears to be a church, which the figures would just have exited. It is possible that this is simply a "initial concept" for the work, and that later on Goya changed the architecture to move the scene to a rural setting.

Many scholars are unaware of the existence of this sketch. The difficulty of gaining physical access to the work adds further doubt to its attribution to Goya.