Trials

A naked witch teaches her disciple, a man who is also unclothed, to rise into the air. To do so, she holds him by one ear and pulls on it, while the man holds on to the witch's head with one arm. The scene is witnessed by a billy goat who looks on majestically from the background, as well as by a cat standing in front of them and observing the spectator, very close to which is another feline walking towards the background. Next to the cat are a jug, a skull and two spindles, similar to those used by the witches in Caprice no. 44, Thin Spindle.

Compared to other engravings in the series, Goya gives a preponderance to etching over aquatint. He accurately depicts the anatomies of the figures, as well as the two animals. He constructs the upper part of the sky with short, very continuous horizontal strokes.

The manuscript in the Prado Museum explains this engraving as follows: "Little by little he is getting ahead of himself, he is already making his first steps and in time he will know more than the master". The manuscript of the National Library tells us about this print: "Leaving the labours of sex; continually scolding married people; stealing and always being like cats, are trials and beginnings of cabronería".

Goya creates an image intended to satirise the practices of witchcraft, as he has done on other occasions throughout the series of The Caprices. The billy goat has important analogies with the one in the work Aquelarre, which the Aragonese painter produced as part of the series of small paintings commissioned by the Duke and Duchess of Osuna to decorate their country house called The Caprice.

Although the subject of witches was a fashionable one in the late 18th century, especially among aristocrats, Goya used these characters to criticise certain human vices.