Confidence

Goya was always fascinated by amorous relationships between women. In this drawing, two women dressed in lock-suits are engaged in opening or closing locks on each other. Their faces cannot be seen, as they cover their heads with hoods, perhaps in allusion to the furtiveness and prohibition of their relationship.

According to Gassier, this is a theme with a strangely erotic symbolism. In a number of contemporary and later drawings, the painter depicted the woman wearing a kind of armour or dress full of locks, but almost always with a man trying to open them, hence the boldness and modernity of this drawing, which goes much further in its pretensions and is the first and probably the only time Goya treated this theme from this exclusively female perspective and in such an open manner. In fact, this excessive boldness, scandalous for the time, must have been the reason why this drawing, probably preparatory for the Caprices, was never engraved or included in the edition of the Caprices.