According to some accounts of its provenance, 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 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. The most likely sources for "The Third of May" were popular imagery, prints, and broadsides. Depictions of firing squads were common in Spanish political imagery during the Napoleonic War, and Goya's appropriations suggest that he envisaged paintings of heroic scale that would appeal to the general public. Miguel Gamborino's 1813 devotional print "The Assassination of Five Monks from Valencia" is thought to have served as a source for Goya's composition. Points of similarity include a victim in a posture of crucifixion, whose white garment sets him apart from his companions; a tonsured monk with clenched hands who kneels to his left; and an executed corpse lying in the foreground. The geometry of the composition may be an ironic comment on the French painter Jacques-Louis David's 1784 work "Oath of the Horatii". The outstretched arms of David's three Roman Horatii in salute are transmuted into the rifles of the firing squad; the upraised arms of the Horatii's father become the victim's gesture as he faces his executioners.