Card Players (Los jugadores de naipes)

A group of men are playing a game of cards in which one of the players has an unfair advantage. The representation of cheating gamblers was not new - it appears in Italian and Spanish baroque painting - but never before had it been depicted in the setting that Goya chooses here: out in the open in the middle of the countryside.

The gazes of the figures are focused on the character of the majo on the left. The striking gold and red of his attire are picked out by the sunlight as it falls on him outside the shadow cast by the cape slung over a tree branch as an improvised awning. His accomplices give him signals so they might win their opponents' money. It appears that none of the other players have noticed the luxurious attire of the cardsharp.

Colour, light and shadow play a central role in this scene. Using vibrant and bold colours, Goya seeks contrast with thicker brushstrokes, along with a heightened expressiveness in the characters, whose faces are authentic individual portraits, far removed from the simple types that we find represented in previous cartoons.

Tomlinson interprets the coins and the cards depicted in this work as a symbol of the passing of time, habitual in vanitas iconography, as in the companion cartoon, The Kite.