- Cronología
- Ca. 1812 - 1815
- Dimensiones
- 157 x 207 mm
- Técnica y soporte
- Aguafuerte, aguatinta, lavis, punta seca y bruñidor
- Reconocimiento de la autoría de Goya
- Undisputed work
- Ficha: realización/revisión
- 08 Dec 2010 / 24 May 2023
- Inventario
- 225
42 (on the lower left-hand corner).
See Sad presentiments of what must come to pass (Tristes presentimientos de lo que ha de acontecer).
The title was handwritten on the print by Goya in the first and only series that is known to have been printed at the time the works were created, which the artist gave to his friend Agustín Ceán Bermúdez. Therefore, the title was etched into the plate at a later date and left unchanged as of the first edition of the Disasters of War printed by the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid in 1863, after the printing of the series in the possession of Ceán Bermúdez.
There is no surviving preparatory drawing of this print.
This print depicts a brutal scene of torture. Four French soldiers have captured a Spanish man who they have stripped naked and are holding upside-down against a tree. Two of the soldiers grasp his legs while another observes the scene in the background. The soldier in the foreground with his back to the viewer is holding a sword in both hands ready to cut off his victim's genitals and probably continue mutilating his body.
Mutilation was a practice that was possibly used as a method of humiliating the enemy even after death. Once the victim had been killed, any violent act carried out to the corpse could only have had the purpose of depriving the dead person of their dignity.
This print is linked to no. 37, This is worse (Esto es peor) and no. 39, Great deeds! With dead bodies! (Grande hazaña! Con muertos!), which show mutilated corpses that are missing some of their limbs.
Once again, nature is complicit in a brutal event, providing a support for the ignominious act of dismembering a prisoner's body.
La plancha se conserva en la Calcografía Nacional (cat. 284).
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Goya. Drawings, Etchings and LithographsGoya. DrawingsLondon1954from June 12th to July 25th 1954cat. 56
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Goya nelle collezioni private di SpagneVilla FavoritaLugano1986consultant editor Marta Medina. From June 15th to October 15th 1986cat. 33
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Francisco Goya. Sein leben im spiegel der graphik. Fuendetodos 1746-1828 Bordeaux. 1746-1996Galerie KornfeldBern1996from November 21st 1996 to January 1997cat. 119
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Francisco Goya. Capricci, follie e disastri della guerraSan Donato Milanese2000Opere grafiche della Fondazione Antonio Mazzottacat. 113
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Goya. Opera graficaPinacoteca del Castello di San GiorgioLegnano2006exhibition celebrated from December 16th 2006 to April 1st 2007p. 67
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Goya et la modernitéPinacothèque de ParisParís2013from October 11st 2013 to March 16th 2014cat. 72
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Goya, grabadorMadridBlass S.A.1918cat. 135
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Goya engravings and lithographs, vol. I y II.OxfordBruno Cassirer1964cat. 153
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Vie et ouvre de Francisco de GoyaParísOffice du livre1970cat. 1048
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Catálogo de las estampas de Goya en la Biblioteca NacionalMadridMinisterio de Educación y Cultura, Biblioteca Nacional1996cat. 237
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ParísPinacoteca de París2013p. 136
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Goya. In the Norton Simon MuseumPasadenaNorton Simon Museum2016pp. 114-151