The Getty Gets Goya’s ‘Bullfight’ : Art: The museum pays $7.4 million for the painting, a record for the Spanish artist.

The J. Paul Getty Museum on Wednesday captured London’s auction spotlight with the purchase of a dramatic bullfight painting by Francisco Jose de Goya for $7.4 million, a record price for the Spanish artist. The previous top price for a Goya was $445,000, paid in 1989 for a painting of witches in a Madrid auction.

“Bullfight. Suerte de Vares,” the Getty’s latest record-setting acquisition, is a small (19 3/4 x 23 1/2-inch) oil on canvas painted in 1824, four years before the artist’s death. The painting depicts an injured bull that has gored two horses, coolly eyeing a possible third victim--the celebrated picador Fernando del Toro. The grim bullfighter, who is mounted on a blindfolded horse, hunches over his weapon while a group of fearful matadors observe the tense contest.

“We are delighted to have acquired the painting,” Deborah Gribbon, the museum’s chief curator and associate director, said. “It is an important addition to our collection, a picture that has tremendous visual impact and is an exceptional example of Goya’s late work.

“It will be a fine complement for the Goya portrait in our collection and the wonderful collection of Goya graphic arts at the Norton Simon Museum,” Gribbon said. Among related Goya works in the Simon Museum’s collection is “Tauromaquia,” a renowned series of 33 bullfight prints issued in 1816.

Art historians consider Goya (1746-1828) to be the greatest Spanish artist between Velasquez in the 17th Century and Picasso in the 20th Century. Goya’s career spanned six decades and underwent many transformations, from his beginnings as a court painter to his final, loosely painted expressions of human Angst and frailty.

Goya, who is revered for his ability to evoke intense emotion and deliver biting social commentary, found a rich mine of material--beauty, bravery, cruelty and pathos--in Spanish bullfights. He painted the Getty’s new acquisition as a gift to his friend, Joaquin Maria Ferrer, with whom he lived during a two-month period in Paris.

“Bullfight. Suerte de Varas” remained in the possession of Ferrer’s family until this week, when the Marquesa de la Gandara of Switzerland, a descendant of Ferrer, consigned it to a sale of Old Master paintings at Sotheby’s auction house.

“It’s a wonderful picture with dramatic, poetic and romantic qualities,” said George Goldner, curator of paintings and drawings at the Getty. “It’s in wonderful condition and we’re thrilled to have it.”

The painting was brought to England specifically for the auction and requires only a pro-forma export license, according to a Getty spokesperson.

The painting has publicly exhibited on only three occasions. It will go on view at the museum in Malibu in about two months after it has been cleaned in the Getty’s conservation laboratory.