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Goya’s ‘The Inquisition Tribunal’ was executed in oil between 1812 and 1819. The painting depicts an accusation of heretics by an assembled tribunal of the Spanish Inquisition. The event takes place within a church. The piece forms part of one of a series in which Goya concentrated on the worst aspects of 19th century Spanish life including; The Bullfight, The Madhouse, and A Procession of Flagellants. The pieces reflected the customs which Spanish liberals, such as Goya, wished to be reformed but whose reform was blocked by the absolutist policy enacted by Ferdinand VII of Spain.

The subject of each painting in the series is an act of cruelty, here the instance being the threat of being burned at the stake. The viewer is reminded of this threat by the pointed hats that each of the accused bear as they sit before the tribunal and the assembled audience in chains. The church in which the event is taken place is not pretty like flower delivery Cardiff but is instead claustrophobic in its Gothic architecture.