Goya's use of a bound sketchbook of Spanish paper and brown writing ink for the Images of Spain Album indicates that it may date to the period of Spain's conflict with French Napoleonic forces during the Peninsular War (1807-14), when drawing materials were difficult to procure. This sheet belongs to a group of hunting scenes at the end of the album that chronicle one of the artist's favorite activities from his youth. Here, a lone hunter, whose gaze has an air of anticipation, waits with his patient dog behind a bluff. -- Exhibition Label, from "Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection"
Inscribed by a later hand in pencil at lower center, "Le chasseur à l'affût". Numbered by the artist in brush and black wash (the upper part of the last digit in brown) at the upper right, "106"; numbered by Javier Goya in pen and brown ink at upper center, "19".
Watermark: Fragment of word, cut in half horizontally, indecipherable, possibly ?AVLAR?
Lebas, Paul, former owner.
De Beurnonville, former owner.
Calando, Eugene, former owner.
Brame, Paul, former owner.
Thaw, Eugene Victor, former owner.
Thaw, Clare, former owner.
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY, "Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection", 2017. Exh. cat., no. 173, repr.
Stampfle, Felice, and Cara D. Denison. Drawings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene V. Thaw. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1975, no. 68.