¹ Our collaborator, Mr. Paul Mantz, published in the *Archives de l'art français*, vol. I, p. 319, Goya's death certificate, which he had found in the civil registers of Bordeaux. It states that "François de Goya y Lucientes, widower of Josefa Bayeu, aged eighty-five, died on April 16, 1828." This age of 85, compared to the date of death, 1828, would place his birth in 1743; but as nothing, to our knowledge, has contradicted the precise date given by Mr. Valentin Carderera, we believe it to be an error on the part of the witnesses, who perhaps only knew the artist since his stay in Bordeaux. — PH.

B. ↑

² *Goya*, by M. Laurent Matheron. Paris, 1858. ↑

³ Strange thing! Of all the artists he had known in Rome, Goya, in his old age, spoke only of our great David, and seemed to have formed an intimate friendship with him alone. — PH. B. ↑

⁴ The Bordeaux death certificate gives us the name of Goya's wife, Josefa Bayeu, and Mr. Paul Mantz expresses the opinion "that she could be the daughter or the sister" of that Francisco Bayeu y Subías, about ten years older than Goya, whom he had met again in Italy after having known him in Luzán's studio. — PH. B. ↑

⁵ Mr. Valentin Carderera has here passed over in silence the entire period of Goya's life that unfolded amidst the festivities, intrigues, and setbacks of the Madrid court, from 1789 to 1824. And yet, what revolutions, what unexpected turns of events did the courtier-painter and independent draftsman witness during his long career! A favorite of Charles III, Charles IV, Ferdinand VII, and King Joseph (whose portrait he painted in 1812), a familiar of Queen María Luisa and the intimate counselor Godoy, drawn with sympathy into the circles of the Duchess of Alba and the Duchess of Osuna, Goya never lost that harshness in jest and that mocking common sense which have been, in all countries and at all times, the privilege of the people.

The cruel barbs he aimed indifferently at all parties were, we think, the real reason for his stay in France, not to say his exile. In the work he has promised to the Gazette des Beaux-Arts on the painter's etchings, our collaborator will, we hope, clarify some of these delicate allusions that only a Spaniard can understand.

The portrait of Goya, which Mr. Ulysse Parent has reproduced for us with scrupulous care from a very finely executed drawing, represents him at the age of about 40, in court costume, his hair carefully curled with an iron and tied with a large ribbon; the forehead is high, the brow ridges have that development observed especially on the frontal bone of painters, and the enormous neck gives the head a singularly strong base. This portrait, which shows us the uniform, and, so to speak, the official physiognomy of the painter of Charles IV, is all the more curious because the work of Goya owned by the Cabinet des Estampes in Paris is preceded by another self-portrait, where he is seen in profile, in a completely informal costume.

Here is how Mr. Théophile Gautier described it in a study as colorful as a master's work: "He is a man of about fifty, with a sly, oblique eye, covered by a large eyelid with a malicious and mocking crow's foot, a chin curved like a clog, a thin upper lip, a prominent and sensual lower lip, the whole framed in southern sideburns and surmounted by a Bolivar-style hat; a characterized and powerful physiognomy." — PH. B. ↑

⁶ We do not need to point out to our readers with what talent Mr. Bracquemond has translated, from a rather unfinished sketch, even the habitual work of Goya in his etchings; but an irrefutable judge, Mr. Valentin Carderera himself, to whom we had sent a trial proof, expresses the most complete satisfaction. We can even add that this translation, at once intelligent and severe, has produced a real impression among the amateurs of Madrid. — PH. B. ↑