Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes
nach Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, Maler, Erfinder
" El Aguadór de Sevilla" / Der Wasserverkäufer von Sevilla, 1778 - 1779; vor 1792
This is a preliminary drawing for an etching after the painting by Diego Velázquez in London.[1] There is no known proof and it seems likely that none was ever pulled. It has traditionally been said that this drawing shows the marks of having been transferred to a copper plate: wrinkles in the paper and the impression of the plate edges offer clues to that assumption. However, close observation of those marks allows us to surmise that the wrinkles do not resemble those of other preparatory drawings that have been transferred, nor is the line around the edge the result of contact with a plate in a press. That line is very irregular and appears to have been drawn in graphite and then reinforced with a stylus. It also lacks the depth of a plate mark produced by a press. It may have been used to calculate where the plate would have to be placed in order to transfer the drawing.
In its technique the drawing matches all of Francisco de Goya's previous red-chalk drawings after paintings by Velázquez. Parallel strokes are used to clarify forms and to bring volume to the bodies. Outlines are avoided, and as in the portrait of Philip IV, no preliminary drawing in graphite is visible. In this and other drawings after famous early works by Velázquez (the royal equestrian portraits[2] or the portrait of the Cardinal Infante Don Fernando [inv. no. 38538, cat. no. 53]), Goya reduced the format of the original to a more distinctly vertical presentation, one that forced him to straighten the line at the back of the waterseller's outer garment. Altogether, his figure appears to have been elongated. With longer hair, a shorter beard, eyes wide open, and closer-fitting clothing, he now seems distinctly younger.
However, Goya's greatest change is his compression of the grouping of the three figures. He illuminates the almost two-dimensional middle-aged man drinking in the background of the painting with the same intensity (but from a different source) as the boy receiving the glass (the profile of which is more slender owing to the change in format) on the left. His rendering of the large jar with its streaks of precious water down the sides that dominates the foreground in Velázquez's work is similar to that of the smaller vessel on the left and the illuminated front of the waterseller's garment. In addition, it is as brightly illuminated as the man in the background. As a result, the spatial arrangement as conceived by Velázquez is lost, and the whole grouping is drawn closer together so that it stands, fused into a single unit and before a background consisting of uniformly horizontal lines. Thus Goya once again achieves what he brought to previous portraits: the subjects take on greater importance, yet their defining attributes and roles in society are suppressed.
Jens Hoffmann-Samland
1. Oil on canvas, 42 x 31 7/8 in. (106 x 82 cm), 1619-23, London, Wellington Museum, Apsley House, inv. 1608.
2. See Hoffmann-Samland 2011, 80–92.