Francisco de Goya

This one is no less so

Clasificación
This one is no less so
Datos Generales
Cronología
Ca. 1820 - 1823
Dimensiones
179 x 220 mm
Técnica y soporte
Aguafuerte, aguatinta bruñida, punta seca, buril y bruñidor
Reconocimiento de la autoría de Goya
Undisputed work
Ficha: realización/revisión
22 Dec 2010 / 24 May 2023
Inventario
225
Historia

See Sad forebodings of what is to come.

The title of the print was handwritten by Goya on the first and only series known to us at the time of its production, which the painter gave to his friend Agustín Ceán Bermúdez. Thus the title was subsequently engraved on the plate without any modification from Ceán Bermúdez's copy for the first edition of Disasters of war published by the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid in 1863.

preparatory drawing is kept in the Prado Museum.

Análisis artístico

Several well-dressed figures, probably members of the nobility, carry an image of the Virgin on their shoulders. Behind them is a group of people carrying another religious image. Jesusa Vega has interpreted this to be the Virgin of Solitude, to whom Ferdinand VII entrusted himself, asking her to preserve his health, and the Virgin of Atocha, in whose hands the monarch had left the country when he left the throne in 1808.

In order to be able to read this print properly, it is also necessary to analyse the one that precedes it, No. 66, Strange Devotion. Both the titles and the composition used link the two prints and suggest an analogous relationship between them. The two prints show a sacred image being carried in the first case by a donkey, and in the second by a group of members of the aristocracy.

Nigel Glendinning suggests that the source of inspiration for engraving no. 66 may be the fables of Félix María Samaniego (Laguardia, Álava, 1745-1801) and José Agustín Ibáñez de la Rentería (Bilbao, 1751-Lequeitio, 1826). Engraving no. 66 reproduces the first part of them, in which the image is described. The second part, the moralising part, could be the one condensed in print no. 67, the one we are dealing with here. 

If we compare this engraving with the previous one, we come to the conclusion that it is quite likely that the criticism is focused on the social class, well characterised by its somewhat old-fashioned clothing as Glendinning has noted, rather than on the circumstance that unfolds before our eyes. In this way, Goya would be questioning the aristocracy that revitalised this type of belief after the War of Independence, even when a certain sector of the Church itself questioned it.

Conservación

The plate is in the National Chalcography (cat. 318).

Exposiciones
  • Francisco Goya. Sein leben im spiegel der graphik. Fuendetodos 1746-1828 Bordeaux. 1746-1996
    Galerie Kornfeld
    Bern
    1996
    from November 21st 1996 to January 1997
  • Francisco Goya. Capricci, follie e disastri della guerra
    San Donato Milanese
    2000
    Opere grafiche della Fondazione Antonio Mazzotta
  • Goya et la modernité
    Pinacothèque de Paris
    París
    2013
    from October 11st 2013 to March 16th 2014
Bibliografía
  • BERUETE Y MONET, Aureliano de
    Goya, grabador
    Bibliography']['number
    MadridBlass S.A.
    1918
    cat. 169
  • GLENDINNING, Nigel
    El asno cargado de reliquias en Los desastres de la guerra de Goya
    Archivo español de arte
    Bibliography']['number
    1962
    pp. 221-230
  • HARRIS, Tomás
    Goya engravings and lithographs, vol. I y II.
    Bibliography']['number
    OxfordBruno Cassirer
    1964
    cat. 187
  • GASSIER, Pierre y WILSON, Juliet
    Vie et ouvre de Francisco de Goya
    Bibliography']['number
    ParísOffice du livre
    1970
    cat. 1108
  • GLENDINNING, Nigel
    A solution to the enigma of Goya’s emphatic caprices nº 65-80 of The Disasters of War
    Apollo
    Bibliography']['number
    1978
    pp.186-191
  • ALCALÁ FLECHA, Roberto
    Fuentes emblemáticas del asno cargado de reliquias de la serie Los desastres de la guerra de Goya1982
    Goya
    Bibliography']['number
    1982
    pp.274-278
  • SANTIAGO, Elena M. (coordinadora)
    Catálogo de las estampas de Goya en la Biblioteca Nacional
    Bibliography']['number
    MadridMinisterio de Educación y Cultura, Biblioteca Nacional
    1996
    cat. 283
  • OROPESA, Marisa and RINCÓN GARCÍA, Wilfredo
    Bibliography']['number
    ParísPinacoteca de París
    2013
    p. 153
  • WILSON BAREAU, Juliet
    Goya. In the Norton Simon Museum
    Bibliography']['number
    PasadenaNorton Simon Museum
    2016
    pp. 114-151
Enlaces externos
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