Wait to be smeared

An old naked sorcerer with a monstrous face and animal ears applies an ointment to a character with a brush. Thanks to this substance, the latter has become a billy goat trying to take flight. However, there is still something human about him: the leg by which the sorcerer grabs him, where he has not yet spread the potion. Next to them stands a one-eyed woman with a one-eyed body and a worn face, who watches the scene attentively.

With the burnisher Goya has created a large triangle of light behind the figures, above which is another half-tone triangle. The bodies of the figures, especially that of the goat about to take flight, and the ground on the left side of the print, are rendered with precision in etching.

In the Ayala manuscript the engraving is explained as an Extreme-Unction, while in the Prado manuscript a more detailed interpretation is given: "They send him on an important errand and he wants to leave half smeared; among the witches there are also trunks, hasty, boastful, without a shred of judgement; everyone is a country". Finally, the manuscript of the National Library gives us the following description of the print: "With the spread of ignorance and clumsiness, men become bastards in the end". (The Extreme-Unction).

It is possible that one of Goya's sources of inspiration for this engraving was the Tragicomedy of Lysander and Rosalia or Second Celestina (1534) by Feliciano de Silva (Ciudad Rodrigo, 1482/1492-1554). This theme also appears in the Auto de fe held in the city of Logroño on 6 and 7 November 1610.

As in many other scenes of witchcraft in the Caprices series, in this print the dreamlike prevails over the critical content. Goya has taken great care with the composition and has recreated the faces of the characters, especially the one in the foreground, to provide us with a surprising image drawn from his fantasy. It looks more like a Goyaesque amusement than an image intended for censorship.