FRANCISCO DE GOYA - THOSE POWDERS (LOS CAPRICHOS, Nº 23) - 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 23. 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: A prisoner - in the Goyaesque engraving it is really difficult to tell whether it is a man or a woman - is seated on a raised platform. He wears a sambenito, a chasuble that was often decorated with scenes alluding to hell, and a coroza on his head. He is being subjected to a singular act of faith that was celebrated with a single prisoner, either inside a church or in a public space. In front of him stands a pulpit from which an inquisitor reads the charges from an open book. Around the pulpit and the stage, a crowd witnesses the trial. We can only make out two friars in the foreground because Goya has superficially and indistinctly captured the rest of the faces.

The explanations in the manuscripts clarify engraving no. 23 of the series; the Ayala engraving reads: " Self-belief. A rabble of foolish priests and friars make a meal of such functions. Perico the lame man who gave powder to lovers. The one in the Prado Museum reads: "Badly done! To treat a woman of honour, who for a frivolous woman served the whole world diligently, in this way is wrong! Finally, the manuscript in the National Library notes that "the rabble of priests and friars is the one who lives with the feasts of the autillos (Perico the lame)".

Conservation: Good impression.

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