Goya's family:
forebears and offspring

The Goya were bourgueois of Zaragoza, and the Lucientes members of the minor nobility who cultivated their land themselves



Javier de Goya y Bayeu, one of the painter's sons

Both the Goya and Luciente families had been Aragonese for several generations. One forebear of the artist was his great-great grandfather, Domingo de Goya y Villamayor, a Basque from Cerain who went to Aragon as a master builder and settled down in Fuentes de Jiloca just before 1625. After some years there he moved to Zaragoza. Goya's great grandfather was also a master builder. His grandfather was a royal notary and the owner of three houses in the calle de la Moreria Cerrada (Zaragoza). The painter's father, José, was a master gilder and enjoyed a certain fame in the artistic life of the city in the middle of the 18th century.

Goya's mother's side of the family, the Lucientes, were minor nobility who lived in Fuendetodos, where they owned land which they themselves cultivated. The branch of the family from which Goya descended came from the village of Uncastillo, where they had lived since the Middle Ages. Miguel Lucientes y Navarro, the father of Gracia, the painter's mother, occupied the post of Village Mayor for a period of time and also lived from time to time in Zaragoza.

After their marriage in 1736 in Zaragoza, Jose and Gracia had six children: Rita (1737), the eldest, who would look after her parents in their old age.; Tomas(1739), who became a gilder like his father; Jacinta (1743), who died at the age of 7; Francisco (1746), the painter; Mariano (1750), who died while still a child, and Camilo (1752) who, after his ecclesiastical studies at the University of Zaragoza, became chaplain of Chinchón, near Madrid.

Jose and his family owned a house in the calle de la Moreria Cerrada, in the parish of San Gil, until 1762. The house was repossessed because of debts and the family had to move to a rented house in the Coso, opposite the so called "Piedras del Coso". Some years later, the family moved to another house in the calle and plaza San Miguel.

Francisco de Goya married Josefa Bayeu in on 25th July 1773 in Madrid. Josefa was the sister of the painters Francisco, Fray Manuel and Ramon. The marriage produced eight children. With the exception of the last child, Javier Goya y Bayeu, born on the 4th of December 1784 and the painter's heir, all the children (Antonio, Eusebio, Vicente, Maria del Pilar, Francisco de Paula, Hermenegilda and Francisco Javier) died at birth or when still very young.

Miniatures of the family Goya Goicoechea

Other portraits of Goya’s family

Bibliografía

Canellas, Ángel (ed.). Francisco de Goya : Diplomatario. Zaragoza, 1981.

Canellas, Ángel (ed.). Francisco de Goya : Diplomatario : Addenda. Zaragoza, 1991.

Arturo Ansón


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