Gossiping Women (Mujeres conversando)

Trapier considers, based on the testimony of Nicolás de la Cruz, Count of Maule, that this work could have been one of the three overdoor pieces painted for Sebastián Martínez, the art dealer and ilustrado in whose Cádiz home Goya spent several months between 1792 and 1793. The two other works commissioned at the same time would therefore have been Sleepy Woman and The Dream, this last one being smaller in size, probably after being cut down.

The painting Gossiping Women brings to mind the cartoons that Goya made between 1775 and 1792 for the Royal Textile Factory of Santa Bárbara, costumbrista and pastoral scenes which had to be sufficiently simple in their designs so as to permit their later conversion into tapestries. In fact, some believe that this painting could have been the cartoon for a tapestry which has either been lost or which was never made.

We can see two reclining women talking in the countryside, one in front of the other, dressed in elegant clothes, leading us to believe that they are not far from the city. The fact that the topic of conversation is an interesting one is made clear by the rather surprised and intrigued expression of the woman who is facing the viewer, dressed in a reddish-coloured outfit.

In this painting, Goya makes use of quick, loose brushstrokes, recalling some of Velázquez's work (Seville, 1599-Madrid, 1660). He has managed to skilfully capture the quality of the fabrics and their folds, lingering in particular over the pink skirt of the woman in the foreground. It is possible that one of the sources that inspired this painting could have been Velázquez's The Toilet of Venus (La Venus del espejo) (Ca. 1648, National Gallery, London), which Goya would have seen when it was in the collection of the Duke and Duchess of Alba.

See rec. no.