Varilarguero on the shoulders of a pimp, stinging a bull (Bullfighting D)

See How the ancient Spaniards hunted bulls on horseback in the countryside

This print was not included by Goya in the official edition of Bullfighting  in 1816, as he had previously discarded it, but neither did he replace it with another that dealt with the same subject, as happened in other cases.

Two symmetrical groups of figures appear in the foreground of the print, which reproduces quite faithfully the preparatory drawing, also entitled Varilarguero on the shoulders of a pimp, stinging a bull (Bullfighting D), with the addition og a very successful chiaroscuro effect. the two groups are of similar importance, which may have seemed a mistake in Goya´s eyes and led him not to include the print in the series.

 The group on the right consists of the bull and two men, one dressed as a picador, standing on the shoulders of the other holding a pike with which he is poking the bull while the bearer throws the cape at the animal. There is a marked contrast between the black colour of the bull and the clear intonation of the bullfighters. The group on the left is made up of four men, no doubt pimps, who are dressed in capes and watch the scene in case it should be necessary to intervene. In the background, between the two groups, we can see a third, secondary group of four more pimps and, further back, the barrier and the bullrings filled with a crowd of people watching the scene attentively. There are few points of light, which mainly highlight the costumes of the men in the foreground.

Lafuente Ferrari relates the scene to the bullfighter Juan Jorge, Joaquinín, who performed a number like the one depicted, which is known from a poster in the Madrid bullring in 1776. For Bagüés, what is represented is a novillada, a type of bullfight in which the bulls were run without being killed. He highlights a lighting effect created in part of the bullring, which he considers magnificent.