The Rendezvous (La cita)

This overdoor piece was designed for the east wall of the antechamber to the bedroom, facing the tapestry of The Doctor.

Cruzada Villaamil comments upon the technical laxness of the work, just as Arnaiz, who is of the opinion that the last pieces in this series, i.e. The Woodcutters, The Doctor, Majo with Guitar and this work, are without a doubt inferior to the earlier ones. Camón Aznar, always impressed by Goya's use of colour, describes the woman's dress as one of the best fragments in Goya's work, filled as it is with purple and bluish brilliance.

Nordström identifies this cartoon, just like The Woodcutters, with melancholy. Justification for this reading can be found in the posture of the central female figure resting her head on her hand, in the use of sombre colours, in the bare tree that signals winter, and in the woman's isolation from the rest of the figures that appear behind her. Goya himself described the work by saying that the men are looking upon the sadness of the lady.

Tomlinson takes the iconographic interpretation of melancholy and adds that, in her opinion, the woman's feelings are due to an excess of worldly delights.