Saturn Devouring His Son, c.1821/23 Francisco de Goya (1746-1828)

We create our paintings with museum quality and covering the highest academic standards. Once we get your order, it will be entirely hand-painted with oil on canvas. All the materials we use are the highest level, being totally artist graded painting materials and linen canvas.

We will add 1.6" (4 cm) additional blank canvas all over the painting for stretching.

High quality and detailing in every inch are time consuming. The reproduction of Francisco de Goya also needs time to dry in order to be completely ready for shipping, as this is crucial to not be damaged during transportation.
Based on the size, level of detail and complexity we need 8-9 weeks to complete the process.

In case the delivery date needs to be extended in time, or we are overloaded with requests, there will be an email sent to you sharing the new timelines of production and delivery.

TOPofART wants to remind you to keep patient, in order to get you the highest quality, being our mission to fulfill your expectations.

We not stretch and frame our oil paintings due to several reasons:
Painting reproduction is a high quality expensive product, which we cannot risk to damage by sending it being stretched.
Also, there are postal restrictions, regarding the size of the shipment.
Additionally, due to the dimensions of the stretched canvas, the shipment price may exceed the price of the product itself.

You can stretch and frame your painting in your local frame-shop.

Once the painting Saturn Devouring His Son is ready and dry, it will be shipped to your delivery address. The canvas will be rolled-up in a secure postal tube.

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The paintings we create are only of museum quality. Our academy graduated artists will never allow a compromise in the quality and detail of the ordered painting. TOPofART do not work, and will never allow ourselves to work with low quality studios from the Far East. We are based in Europe, and quality is our highest priority.

Two enormous hands close around a pale torso, their fingers pressing into the flesh. Above them, a mouth opens around a torn arm. Yet the most unsettling detail may be the eyes: wide, unevenly lit, and staring beyond the body being consumed. Gray hair spills around the face, while red smears connect the mouth to the wounds below. There is no visible setting to put any distance between us and this act.

Almost everything emerges from brown-black darkness. An ocher shoulder, a bent knee, and the long sweep of a shin give fragments of the giant’s crouching body; other parts disappear into the background. The smaller figure hangs nearly upright at the center, its back turned toward us. Its pale flesh and exposed red wounds stand out against the earth colors surrounding it. Broad, ragged strokes make the hair look disordered and the limbs seem roughly pulled out of shadow. Nothing here has the smooth, complete outline of a classical statue.

In Saturn Devouring His Son, painted around 1821-23, Goya gives the ancient god neither dignity nor composure. According to the myth, Saturn eats his children to prevent one of them from overthrowing him. Here, that fear of being displaced can feel more immediate than the story itself. The victim has the proportions of a grown body rather than an infant, making the difference in scale especially disturbing. The hands have a crushing certainty that the terrified face does not share.

This image originally occupied a ground-floor wall in the artist’s home, the Quinta del Sordo. It belongs to the group now called the Black Paintings, a name that reflects both their dark palette and their bleak subjects. Working within his own house gave the painter unusual freedom from public expectations. The paintings were later removed from the walls and mounted on canvas, with substantial paint lost during the transfer.

The darkness leaves Saturn nowhere to stand securely. His limbs fold awkwardly through the narrow space, while the body in his hands hangs still. For all his size and the force of his grip, those staring eyes make him look less like a god in command than a creature afraid to stop.