Bayeu’s Picnic in the Country [aka Merienda en el Campo] is a study of a proposed tapestry destined for the royal palaces of the Spanish monarchy now exhibited in the Prado’s Salon de Consejos.
The picnickers have gathered around awhile cloth set on the ground in the yard of a working farm. The aristocrats eat from plates and are attended to by servants, drinking heavily as there is a bottle of wine for each person. The women are eating with forks. A man in a red and yellow cape poses while the others eat. Perhaps he is providing entertainment for a guitar and sword and other garments ladies in a heap nearby. Red and yellow are the colors of the Spanish flag adopted during the reign of Charles III, for whom Bayeu was a court painter.
Featured Image: Francisco Bayeu. Merienda en el Campo aka Picnic in the Country (1786), oil on canvas. Museo del Prado. Madrid