The composition is traditional, static, with the family all lined up as if on a stage. Goya is depicted in the picture, standing at his easel.
What is unique is the fact that Goya did not make the figures look more beautiful than they really were. He did not flatter them. One woman in particular is quite grotesque. So he he sometimes credited with anticipating realism or naturalism in painting.
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There is also the masterly group portrait Family of Charles IV (1800-1801, Prado Museum), and the superb equestrian portraits of Charles IV (1800-1801, Prado) and Maria Luisa de Parma (1799, Prado). In these portraits he used the inspiration of Velazquez in the iconography (Las Meninas and the equestrian portraits of the Austrias) and in the suggestion of 'magic of the ambience'(a phrase which the painter's son Javier said his father used). The family of Charles IV is a paradigmatic work; there is no focus, although the king, queen and their successor The Principe de Asturias stand out. Also notable is the domesticity of the scene. It is summation of the Court, but it is, above all, a picture of a model family according to the ideas of the Enlightenment.
