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Goya’s ‘Two Old Men Eating Soup’ forms part of his 14 Black Paintings which he executed in oil directly onto the walls off his house which was called La Quinta del Sordo. Painted between 1819 and 1823, ‘Two Old Men Eating Soup’ was located above the main door to the house in between ‘Two Old Men’ and ‘La Leocadia’. The painting was transferred to canvas like the other paintings, in 1873 under the supervision of Salvador Martinez Cubells, the curator of the Prado museum in Madrid.

The paintings depicts two elderly figures whom loom forward from a black background, just as the figures in many of Goya’s other Black Paintings do. It is assumed that the figures are men but this is unsure. The left figure’s mouth is drawn into an unpleasant grimace which suggests a lack of teeth inside. The figure on the right seems to hardly be alive at all, in stark contrast to the animated expression of the left figure. The figure on the right certainly would not have the energy to call flower delivery Manchester, his eyes being hollows in a head that looks more like a skull.