Boys playing at Soldiers

Presented on January 5, 1779, it was designed to be used for a door tapestry in the bedchamber of the Prince and Princess of Asturias at the Royal Palace of El Pardo. The Prado Museum houses this Goya piece in its collections. There are also two sketches of it, one in a private Spanish collection and the other in the Stirling Maxwell Collection in Glasgow.

It is a "...door tapestry [in which] 2 boys play at being soldiers in hats and shotguns while another plays a drum and yet another plays with a toy bell tower. It is 3 feet and 4 fingers wide, and 5 feet and 4 fingers tall. Its value is 1,000 Spanish reals." ("... sobrepuerta [en la que] ay dos muchachos como Jugando á los Soldados con Gorros y Escopetas otro tocando un Tambor, y otro Jugando con un Campanario de Ferias. Su ancho tres pies y quatro dedos, alto cinco pies quatro dedos. Su balor mil rr.s vellon". Francisco de Goya).

Of the 3 tapestries, 2 are now kept in the National Heritage collections at the Royal Palace and the Santa Cruz Palace (the headquarters of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs). The third is kept at the Cathedral Museum. It was acquired by Don Fernando Gomedi in 1794 and later by Don Pedro Acuña y Malvar, who donated it to Santiago Cathedral in his will, in 1814.