FRANCISCO DE GOYA - THEY ARE ALREADY PLUCKED (LOS CAPRICHOS, Nº 20) - 1918

Subject: Original engraving by Goya from the first half of the 20th century. Tenth edition. The Caprichos - Francisco de Goya.

Publication: Madrid, Real Calcografía, 1918. 10th edition. 

Technique: Etching, burnished aquatint and drypoint. Beveled. Black and white with sepia tones on laid paper that looks similar to the first edition. Watermarked paper (Portrait of Goya with hat) Numbered in the upper right corner with 20. Title in plate in the lower part. This edition is very well printed and is the best after the fourth edition, the plates have been cleaned and cleaned and the printing has been improved.

Size: 21,5 x 15 cm [print], 33'5 x 26'5 cm [paper].

Description: This print continues the narrative begun in the previous Caprice, No. 19, All will fall, as it depicts how, once the bird-men have been captured and plucked, they are treated with broomsticks. A young woman in the foreground pushes two of these strange beings with a broom, who defend themselves with difficulty, as if helpless. Further back, two old men, perhaps friars, although it has also been suggested that they may be procuresses, watch this scene. In the background, a young woman raises a broom over her head and prepares to crush a bird-man who is running in terror towards the background, trying to get out through a door through which the light is penetrating. In the upper right corner a bird is copulating with a bird-woman, unaware of what awaits her next.

Goya has used aquatint to achieve two tonalities which he distributes appropriately and burnishes it to produce the effect of a wash. The silhouette of the chicken at the door shows a tonal degradation of the aquatint. The rest of the hybrid creatures have been modelled with small touches of drypoint.

The manuscripts provide an interpretation for this image; the Ayala manuscript reads: "After the birds have been plucked, they are thrown out: one comes down lame and viscous, and two very reverend fathers, with their rosaries on their belts, hold their swords for them and celebrate the mockery".

Conservation: Good impression.

References: T., Harris, Goya: Engravings and Lithographs.