Nymphs and Cupids (sketch)

This is a sketch for a ceiling. The perspective chosen, the composition and even the subject, usual in decorative ceilings of the period, would seem to confirm this. This picture was bound by the traditional conventions for ceilings, the most famous models for which were painted by foreigners such as Luca Giordano and, later, Antón Raphael Mengs and Giovanni Battista Tiépolo. Its execution, on the other hand, shows it to be a work in Pinazo’s purest style. It combines two of his best subjects: female nudes and children, and he dealt with it, as in some of his best work, by outlining the patches of colour, which are sometimes diffuse, with unembellished brush strokes like pencilled lines, thus giving perfect shape to the figures portrayed.