- Cronología
- Ca. 1797 - 1798
- Ubicación
- The Prado National Museum. Madrid, Madrid, Spain
- Dimensiones
- 209 x 142 mm
- Técnica y soporte
- Sanguine on laid paper
- Reconocimiento de la autoría de Goya
- Documented work
- Titular
- El Prado National Museum
- Ficha: realización/revisión
- 13 Sep 2022 / 27 Jun 2023
- Inventario
- D4222
67 (in pencil. Obverse, lower left corner)
Watermark: [Shield with helmet, bird inside, and underneath "D.N J.PH GISBERT / ALCOY" (upper half)].
On the origin of this and other preparatory drawings for The Caprices, see the commentary on the first of them, corresponding to Caprice number 1 (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, painter), and on the one corresponding to Caprice 3 (The bogeyman is Coming).
Line of provenance of this drawing: Javier Goya; Mariano Goya, 1854; Valentín Carderera, ca. 1861; Mariano Carderera, 1880; Prado Museum, 1886.
Preparatory drawing for Caprice 59. And they are not leaving yet! The drawing, executed with sanguine lines, contains only the outline of the nightmare, in which he manages to reflect the tension between the weight of the stone and the strength of the spectre trying to prevent it from crushing them. But it is the aquatint, and with it the play of light and shadow, that will truly create this "horror of the vague and the infinite" in the final print.
Matilla comments that French Romantics such as Gautier and Baudelaire were particularly interested in this composition, in which they saw an iconic representation of the beings that inhabit the world of darkness and terror. For the Enlightenment writers it was an allegory of how "reason", symbolised by the great slab, was finally going to bury all reactionary forces.
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Francisco de Goya. El proceso creativo de los CaprichosMuseo Nacional del PradoMadrid1999
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Santander2017cat. 40
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Roma D.Anderson: Editeur1908p. 30, n. 59
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Los Caprichos de Goya y sus dibujos preparatoriosBarcelonaInstituto Amatller de Arte Hispánico1949p. 94
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Goya’s Caprichos. Beauty, Reason and CaricatureNueva JerseyPrinceton University Press1953p. 205, fig. 207
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MadridMuseo del Prado1954n. 57
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Vie et ouvre de Francisco de GoyaParísOffice du livre1970p. 183, nº 570
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Dibujos de Goya, 2 volsBarcelonaNoguer1975p. 153
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Los Caprichos de Goyacol. Serie punto y líneaBarcelonaGustavo Gili1977p. 47
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MadridSilex1980pp. 108-109
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MadridMuseo Nacional del Prado1999p. 307
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LisboaFundación Centro Cultural de Belém2001pp. 140-143
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SantanderFundación Botín y Museo Nacional del Prado2017pp. 83, 179
