Winter Scene

Winter Scene — Francisco Goya. c. 1786.

Medium: Oil on canvas. Dimensions: 34.3 × 35.6 cm (13 1/2 × 14 in.); Framed: 49.6 × 50.8 × 7.7 cm (19 1/2 × 20 × 3 in.).

Collection record: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.

Two groups of working-class travelers, one with a slaughtered pig in tow, converge on an icy road during a snowstorm. Francisco de Goya captured the scene’s wintry atmosphere with barren trees, large swaths of cool grays and whites, and diagonal brushstrokes that convey rapid snowfall. This small painting is one of a series of studies Goya created for monumental tapestries depicting the four seasons, commissioned for a dining hall at the Royal Palace of El Pardo in Spain. The image would have been scaled up to life-size and then manufactured by weavers in Spain’s Royal Tapestry Factory.

Description: © Art Institute of Chicago, original record, CC BY 4.0. HTML formatting removed; wording retained. Other artwork metadata: CC0.

Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.