Sacred Art & Iconography
Saturn Devouring His Son
artwork
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One of the fourteen so called Black Paintings the Spanish artist Francisco Goya painted directly onto the walls of his house, the Quinta del Sordo, in his final years, roughly 1819 to 1823, with no intention of public display or sale. It shows the Titan Saturn, gripping and consuming the corpse of one of his own children, the head and part of an arm already gone, his eyes wild and bulging. Ancient myth held that Saturn devoured each child at birth for fear one would overthrow him, and the image is widely read as an allegory of Spain's own convulsions of war and revolution consuming its people. After Goya's death the house passed to Baron Emile d'Erlanger, who in 1874 had the murals transferred from plaster to canvas, a process that damaged some of the paint, before donating the series to the Spanish state. It has hung in the Museo del Prado, Madrid, since 1889.
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Origins
CreationSourced to the subject's own account Date of CreationSourced to the subject's own accountAbout 1819 to 1823, originally a mural 2 Attributed ToSourced to the subject's own account Custody
Current LocationSourced to the subject's own accountMuseo del Prado, Madrid 2 Current CustodianSourced to the subject's own account Rights and Reproduction
Reproduction and CopyrightSourced to the subject's own accountThe painting itself is centuries past any copyright term, but a specific modern photograph of it carries its own separate copyright. This atlas describes and cites the work rather than reproducing an image of it. 1 Physical Form
MediumSourced to the subject's own accountMixed media mural, transferred to canvas in 1874 1 DimensionsSourced to the subject's own account143.5 cm by 81.4 cm (56.5 by 32.0 inches) 2 Subject Matter
Depicted SubjectSourced to the subject's own accountSaturn devouring the corpse of one of his own children, from the myth that he consumed each child at birth to forestall being overthrown by one of them. 2 Cross-Tradition Connections
Belongs to Tradition
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