Friar Pedro Clubs El Maragato with the Butt of the Gun

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes · c. 1806

Medium

Oil on panel

Original size

29.2 × 38.5 cm (11 1/2 × 15 5/8 in.); Framed: 42 × 51.5 × 6.4 cm (16 1/2 × 20 1/4 × 2 1/2 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Neoclassicism

One of six small panels Goya painted in rapid sequence, this scene captures the decisive moment when a Spanish friar physically overpowers a feared highwayman — raw, kinetic, and entirely unlike the formal portraiture that dominated the period. Goya painted the series around 1806, working on a small scale that demanded an economy of gesture unusual even for him. Each panel reads almost like a frame from a film, the action unfolding across the set with an urgency that feels spontaneous rather than composed. His brushwork here is loose and confident — there is no laboured finish, just the essentials of movement, weight, and confrontation rendered with complete authority. The subject was a genuine news sensation. Friar Pedro de Zaldivia, a Mercedarian friar travelling alone, disarmed and captured the notorious bandit El Maragato after a prolonged struggle — an unlikely story that caught the public imagination and clearly caught Goya's as well. Our hand-painted oil reproduction on panel honours the scale and directness of the original, preserving the gestural energy of Goya's brushwork rather than reducing it to polished decoration. Each piece is painted to order by a skilled artist working from high-resolution reference material, so the urgency of that moment survives the translation.