The mourning

Citing health problems, Goya obtained permission from King Ferdinand VII to move to France in July 1824. In Bordeaux, the city where he settled, he met Cipriano Gaulon, a calligrapher by profession and lithographic printer from 1818, thanks to whom he acquired a great mastery of the new technique. It was in his workshop that he printed lithographs such as The Vitus and The Portrait of Gaulon, as well as those that make up the series "The Bulls of Bordeaux"; there are other works depicting animals, the attribution of which is doubtful and which may have been done by Rosarito Weiss.

According to Matheron, in order to execute his lithographic composition, GoyaGoya "[...] made use of the easel where he placed the stone as if it were a canvas, handling the pencils, just like the brushes, without ever cutting them, and remained standing, withdrawing and approaching every minute to judge the effects". The resulting proofs could therefore be considered true sketches and pictorial sketches. As for the technique, "it was his system to first cover the stone with a uniform grey ink and immediately remove with the scraper the parts that were to have light; here a head or figure, there a horse or bull, then using the pencil to reinforce and invigorate the shadows or to indicate the figures and give them movement".

The memory of Spain is very present in all these Bordeaux lithographs. 

Copies of this lithograph, printed at the Gaulon Litographic Establishment (Bordeaux), can be found in a various collections: National Library in Madrid, from the Carderera collection; Library of the Lázaro Galdiano Foundation, from the collection of Infant Sabastian Gabriel de Borbón y Braganza; two proofs in the Staatliche Museen in Berlin, from the Boix collection; British Museum in London; and Art Institute of Chicago, from the Berolzeimer collection.

Together with The Vitus, it would form part of an unfinished series devoted to singular and gruesome customs in Spain, perhaps intended for easy sale to the French public.