A man bends over to peer into a peep show box, revealing a tear in the seat of his pants that offers a bawdy view of his backside to a grinning woman sneaking a peek behind him.
This witty, satirical drawing by Francisco Goya is part of a new exhibition at The Frick Collection that highlights dozens of superb Spanish drawings from the early 17th to the early 19th century.
The curators of "The Spanish Manner: Drawings From Ribera to Goya" contend that drawings by the Spanish old masters — original, visionary and fantastic — have been overshadowed by the work of Italian and Dutch artists.
Now with this show of more than 50 drawings, they are hoping to focus attention on Spain’s inventive and unique graphic tradition during this period, which they have called the "Spanish manner."
One striking example is "David and Goliath," a chalk drawing by the great 17th century painter Jusepe de Ribera. It is all delicacy and refinement, until the viewer notices that the stone David has flung remains lodged in the giant’s forehead.
If that drawing might be a bit disturbing, consider Ribera’s "Head of a Man With Little Figures on His Head." In this startling image, a man with large, crude features is shown in profile, seemingly unaware that four athletic little men are scampering buck naked across his cone-shaped hat.
Another work, "An Auto-da-fe" by Sebastian de Herrera Barnuevo, is the only known 17th-century drawing of the public ceremony that marked the end of some mass trials under the Spanish Inquisition. Convicts in penitents’ robes stand on a scaffold before a tribunal, waiting to be sentenced.
The curators, Jonathan Brown, Lisa A. Banner and the Frick’s Susan Galassi, note that through the mid-18th century in Spain, drawing was taught in artists’ studios rather than in an academy, leading to diverse and idiosyncratic styles.
One gallery features works by Ribera, Herrera Barnuevo and more than a dozen other artists; for the most part, the subject matter is religious, infused with the Roman Catholic ideology of the Counter-Reformation.
A second gallery is devoted exclusively to Goya, the prolific and exceptionally gifted draftsman, painter and printmaker considered the last of the old masters as well as the first modern.
Nearly all the works were part of eight albums of drawings he made between the 1790s and his death in 1828. He began the albums after an illness that left him permanently deaf, and some scholars see them as a form of talking to himself.
Besides the peep show box, a popular form of street entertainment in the 18th century, Goya made vivid drawings of ordinary people, including peasants, prisoners, nuns and the elderly. Although he is best known for dark scenes of violence and torture, he also depicted great tenderness and joy.
One of the most charming drawings is "Mirth," which shows an aging couple levitating toward the sky. The man is playing castanets, a symbol of their happiness, or mirth. Look at it, and you may well feel the same.
The exhibition opened Oct. 5 and closes Jan. 9. Later in October, the museum will unveil one of its prize holdings, Velazquez’s portrait of King Philip IV of Spain, which has been freshly cleaned to remove layers of varnish and wax. A red feather on the king’s hat has been rediscovered, and his splendid crimson and silver coat almost leaps off the canvas.
