Famous work · not an exact-location map point
The Burial of the Sardine
A wild Carnival procession on the meadow by the river Manzanares in Madrid — the day's revels before Lent.
No single real-world viewpoint
A Madrid carnival procession that depicts 'only trees, ground and sky' — no identifiable place even repointed to the Manzanares meadow; and the stored coordinate was 'Ciel', a village in Saône-et-Loire, France (a bad Wikidata P180 link).
The Burial of the Sardine — at a glance
- Artist
- Francisco Goya (1746–1828)
- Year
- c. 1812–1819
- Movement
- Romanticism / Goya's late manner
- Place
- The meadow of San Isidro by the river Manzanares, Madrid
- Viewpoint
- The riverside carnival ground — the meadow and hermitage survive; setting given only as trees and sky
- Medium
- Oil on panel
- Dimensions
- c. 83 × 60 cm
- Now at
- Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid
Overview
The Burial of the Sardine is a small, brilliant, unsettling picture by Francisco Goya, painted probably between about 1812 and 1819. It shows a crowd of masked and costumed Madrileños dancing and reeling across open ground under trees, following a great black banner with a grinning face, on the last day of Carnival. It is oil on panel, about 83 by 60 cm, and it hangs in the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid.
Where was The Burial of the Sardine painted?
Scholarship The ‘Burial of the Sardine’ was (and is) a Madrid Carnival custom marking the start of Lent, traditionally held on the pradera (meadow) of San Isidro on the far bank of the river Manzanares, below the hermitage of San Isidro — the same riverside common Goya had painted a few years earlier in a sunny picnic scene. The Manzanares, the meadow and the hermitage are still there in the south-west of Madrid, though the area is now urban parkland; Goya gives the setting only as trees, ground and sky, so it is the custom and the place-type rather than a marked viewpoint.
What is in the painting?
A throng of figures fills the panel: dancers with linked arms whirling in the centre, women in white, men in grotesque masks — a black-faced mask, a bear, a horned figure — and, held high at the back, a large dark banner or standard bearing a pale, leering face against black. Bare trees frame the scene; the sky is pale and cold. The mood swings between festivity and something darker.
Look closely
The grinning banner
A large dark standard with a pale leering face is held high at the back of the crowd.
The ring of dancers
Figures with linked arms whirl in the centre of the throng, women in white among them.
The grotesque masks
A black mask, a bear, a horned figure — costumed revellers that edge towards the nightmarish.
The bare trees
Leafless trees frame the open riverside ground under a cold pale sky.
Analysis
Composition and technique
A swirling central knot of dancers under a looming black banner, painted with rapid, flickering strokes.
Scholarship Goya builds the picture around the spinning ring of dancers and the vertical of the grinning standard behind them, the crowd thinning towards the edges. The touch is quick and loaded, the light cold and even; masks and white dresses flash out of the press.
Meaning and interpretation
Interpretations differ. What the artist documented, what museums and scholars propose, and later or speculative theories are marked and kept separate.
Carnival and its edge
The picture records a real, licensed moment of misrule before Lent, but Goya — who painted the ‘Black Paintings’ and the ‘Disasters of War’ in the same years — lets the grinning banner and the grotesque masks tip the revelry towards the sinister. It is usually read as being about the thin line between festivity and unreason.
History & provenance
The panel was in Goya's own possession at his death and later entered the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid, where he had studied and taught.
Sources
- Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid — collection entry for Francisco Goya, ‘El entierro de la sardina’ (c. 1812–19; oil on panel, c. 83 × 60 cm)
- Manfred Symington / Museo del Prado literature on Goya's Madrid festival subjects
Frequently asked
What is the ‘Burial of the Sardine’?
A Madrid Carnival custom marking the start of Lent — a mock funeral procession with a banner, dancing and masks, ending with the ‘burial’ of a sardine (or a figure). It is still held in the city today.
Where did it take place?
Traditionally on the meadow (pradera) of San Isidro, on the far bank of the river Manzanares below the hermitage of San Isidro, in the south-west of Madrid — the same riverside common Goya painted in a sunlit picnic scene a few years earlier.
Can you visit the spot?
The Manzanares, the meadow and the hermitage of San Isidro are still there, now in urban parkland. Goya gives the setting only as trees and open ground, so it is the custom and the place rather than a marked viewpoint.
Why does a festival scene feel so dark?
Goya painted it in the same years as the ‘Disasters of War’ and the ‘Black Paintings’. The grinning banner and grotesque masks tip the licensed Carnival misrule towards the sinister — the thin line between festivity and unreason.
Where is the painting now?
In the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid.
