It unchains him

A woman shaves a young man with a razor; he is seated with his feet crossed on a carpet and wrapped in a mantle with bows and frills that looks like a woman's garment. He offers his face to the woman in a voluminous dress. Further back, another richly dressed woman is seen carrying a basin in which the one in the foreground will rinse the soap from the razor. Next to her an older female figure whispers something to the young woman.

The clearest explanation for this engraving is to be found in the manuscript of the National Library, which reads as follows: "A courtesan shaves her bobalicon lover, who is drooling, and thus tears off every last maravedí".

As he did in the engravings No. 19, Everyone Will Fall, and No. 20, Already Plucked, Goya criticises the atmosphere of prostitution through this visual metaphor in which a woman, distracted, prepares to shave a man who does not quite know what he is exposing himself to. In brothels and other places where prostitution was practised, men were constantly being swindled, often blinded by their instincts, and often failed to notice.