The Snowstorm (Winter)

Francisco Goya

Oil on canvas

Museo del Prado

Known in Spanish as La nevada, The Snowstorm or Winter is a large-scale oil-on-canvas tapestry cartoon painted by Francisco de Goya in 1786 for the dining room of the Prince and Princess of Asturias at the Palace of El Pardo, near Madrid. The composition depicts an intense snowfall through which three cloaked and hungry peasants trudge home empty-handed, while two better-dressed figures carry a gutted pig — a quietly powerful social contrast that Goya embedded within what was ostensibly a seasonal genre scene. Commissioned as part of Goya's fifth series of tapestry cartoons for the Royal Tapestry Factory of Santa Bárbara, the work belongs to a group interpreting the four seasons, and stands out for its verism and its naturalistic rendering of human hardship amid harsh winter weather. Born in Fuendetodos, Aragon, in 1746, Goya was appointed Painter to the King in 1786 — the very year this cartoon was completed — marking a decisive turning point in his court career.