The god Vulcan

Bayeu painted the fresco Apollo and Minerva Receiving Hercules in Glory at the Royal Palace in Madrid—the sketch for which is preserved in this museum—and for which he created a series of sketches and preparatory drawings. In this case, it is an independent, finished work, though inspired by the fresco depicting Vulcan, the god of metallurgy. 

Bayeu, however, changed his approach for the final fresco, eliminating the figure’s disability, depicting a seated male nude, and creating volume through magnificent chiaroscuro. He portrays the god with his head in profile and a serene expression, his right arm in foreshortening, with a clenched fist. He omits his symbolic element, the anvil.