Original etching, burnished aquatint, drypoint and burin on paper from ‘Los Caprichos’. From the fifth edition of 210, published between 1881-1886 by the Calcografia for the Real Academia.

Image size: 150 x 215 mm

Frame size: 335 x 410 mm

Goya's commentary:

It is the way of the world. People jest and fight with one another. He who yesterday played the part of the bull, today plays the ‘cabellero en plaza’. Fortune presides over the show and allots the parts according to the inconstancy of her caprices.

Los Caprichos:

The suite was first published in 1799 and Goya is thought to have sold only 27 copies before withdrawing it from circulation due to the Inquisition. Most of the remaining copies of the edition were alter purchased by King Charles IV of Spain. The work was an enlightened, tour-de-force critique of 18th century Spain, and humanity in general. The informal style as well as the depiction of contemporary society found in the Caprichos, makes them and Goya himself, a precursor to the modernist movement almost a century later.

This artwork is framed.