- Cronología
- Ca. 1796 - 1797
- Ubicación
- The Prado National Museum. Madrid, Madrid, Spain
- Dimensiones
- 242 x 183 mm
- Técnica y soporte
- Reconocimiento de la autoría de Goya
- Documented work
- Titular
- El Prado National Museum
- Ficha: realización/revisión
- 15 Dec 2010 / 22 Jun 2023
- Inventario
- (D. 4198)
27 (in pencil; recto, upper centre)
Brujas disfrazadas de fisicos comunes. Casi inedita (in pencil; recto, lower centre)
26 (in pencil; reverse, upper right-hand corner)
Watermark: H C WEND / & / / ZOONEN
On the gestation, history and aims of the series known as Dreams, a set of preparatory drawings for The Caprices, see Dream 1: Universal Language.
Line of provenance of the present drawing: Javier Goya; Mariano Goya, 1854; Valentín Carderera, ca. 1861; Mariano Carderera, 1880; Prado Museum, 1886.
Preparatory drawing for the etching of Caprice no. 40, Of What Evil Will He Die? However, it should be pointed out that Goya modified many aspects of the drawing for the engraving. The sketch shows a donkey acting as a doctor and taking the pulse of a sick man, who is less well-defined in the drawing than in the engraving. Behind the donkey is another donkey with a wig and vaulting hair, reading some notes in a notebook. Between the two donkeys is the head of a woman, perhaps the patient's mother, who appears to be a child, whereas in the print it is an adult man.
Enrique Lafuente Ferrari believes that the woman in the drawing could be the Duchess of Alba and the patient the Duke. The Aragonese painter is thus denouncing the death of the aristocrat due to the ineffectiveness of the doctors who treated him. It has even been suggested that the artist was denouncing, albeit indirectly, the treatments he himself underwent during his illness, from which he recovered between 1792 and 1793 at the home of his friend Sebastián Martínez y Pérez (1747-1800) and which left him with permanent and profound deafness.
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Goya. La década de Los CaprichosMadrid1992organized by Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando sponsored by Fundación Central Hispano, Madrid, consultant editor Nigel Glendinnig. From October 26th 1992 to January 10th 1993p. 228, cat. 136
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Madrid2019cat. 54
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Los Caprichos de Goya y sus dibujos preparatoriosBarcelonaInstituto Amatller de Arte Hispánico1949p. 85
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Goya’s Caprichos. Beauty, Reason and CaricatureNueva JerseyPrinceton University Press1953p. 199, fig. 165
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MadridMuseo del Prado1954n. 37
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Goya. Los Caprichos. Colección de ochenta y cinco estampas en las que se fustigan errores y vicios humanosMadridEdiciones de Arte y Bibliofilia1966cat. 40
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Vie et ouvre de Francisco de GoyaParísOffice du livre1970p. 181, cat. 531
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Dibujos de Goya, 2 volsBarcelonaNoguer1975p. 95, cat. 58
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Los Caprichos de Goyacol. Serie punto y líneaBarcelonaGustavo Gili1977p. 114
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El mundo de Goya en sus dibujosMadridUrbión1979pp. 89-91
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MadridReal Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando1992p. 228, cat. 136
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El libro de los caprichos: dos siglos de interpretaciones (1799-1999). Catálogo de los dibujos, pruebas de estado, láminas de cobre y estampas de la primera ediciónMadridMuseo Nacional del Prado1999p. 227
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MadridMuseo Nacional del Prado2019p. 123