Friar Pedro Shoots El Maragato as His Horse Runs Off
Medium
Oil on panel
Dimensions
29.2 × 38.5 cm (11 1/2 × 15 5/8 in.); Framed: 41.3 × 51.4 × 6.4 cm (16 1/4 × 20 1/4 × 2 1/2 in.)
Classification
painting
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
16362
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
In the summer of 1806 in Spain, on the run after a prison escape, the dreaded bandit El Maragato overtook a family in their home and held them hostage. Among the family members was Pedro de Zaldivia, a lay Franciscan brother who stopped by the house to beg for alms. The humble monk ended up turning the tables on his captor, seizing El Maragato’s rifle and shooting him in the thigh to subdue him before he could grab another gun from his horse. The story of the heroic friar swept through Spain, not...
About the Artist
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes · 1746–1828
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was born on March 30, 1746, in the small Aragonese village of Fuendetodos, Spain, to José Benito de Goya, a master gilder, and Gracia de Lucientes. The fourth of six children in a modest lower-middle-class family, Goya received a basic education before beginning his artistic training at age 14 under the local painter José Luzán y Martínez in Zaragoza, where he sp...