Focus on The Third of May 1808 and analyze the Provenance.
Despite the work's commemorative value, no details about its first exhibition are known, and it is not mentioned in any surviving contemporaneous accounts. This lack of commentary may be due to Fernando VII's preference for neoclassical art, and to the fact that popular revolts of any kind were not regarded as suitable subject matter by the restored Bourbons. A monument to the fallen in the uprising, also commissioned in 1814 by the provisional government, "was stopped by Ferdinand VII, in whose eyes the senators and heroes of the war of independence found small favour, on account of their reforming tendencies".According to some accounts, the painting lay in storage for thirty to forty years before being shown to the public. Its mention in an 1834 Prado inventory shows that the painting remained in the possession of the government or monarchy; much of the royal collection had been transferred to the museum upon its opening in 1819. Théophile Gautier mentioned seeing "a massacre" by Goya during a visit to the museum in 1845, and a visitor in 1858 noted it as well, though both accounts refer to the work as depicting the events of the second of May, perhaps because Dos de Mayo continues to be the Spanish name for the whole episode.In 1867, Goya's biographer Charles Emile Yriarte considered the painting important enough to warrant its own special exhibition, but it was not until 1872 that The Third of May was listed in the Prado's published catalog, under the title Scene of the Third of May 1808. Both the Third and Second of May suffered damage in a road accident while being transported by truck to Valencia for safety during the Spanish Civil War, apparently the only time they have left Madrid. Significant paint losses to the left side of the Second of May have been deliberately left unrepaired until the restoration work to both paintings done in 2008 in time for an exhibition marking the bicentennial of the uprising.In 2009, the Prado selected The Third of May 1808 as one of the museum's fourteen most important paintings, to be displayed in Google Earth at a resolution of 14,000 megapixels.
Dos de Mayo Valencia Ferdinand VII restoration work Madrid Théophile Gautier es Bourbons left Spanish Civil War Google Earth