How the ancient Spaniards hunted bulls on horseback in the countryside

Goya began work on his fourth series of engravings in 1814-1815, at the same time as the Desastres de la Guerra (Disasters of War) was being completed. Although the motives for the choice of subject matter are not clear, and may perhaps be ambivalent, the traditional explanation points, on the one hand, to their precarious economic situation, and on the other to a need for distraction and refuge, or evocation of more pleasant past times. In both cases, the bullfighting theme, not at all controversial in view of the reintroduction of censorship and the Inquisition in Spain, was also ideal due to its potential sales success and the painter's proven fondness for the fiesta, although some authors, including Nigel Glendinning, point to a possible criticism of the violence turned into a spectacle ("the disasters of the party"), or a universal report of any type of violence generated by human beings (as is war), an enlightened vision in which friends of the artist participated, such as Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, author of a Memoir for the arrangement of the police of spectacles and amusements, and on their origin in Spain (1790), in which bullfights were condemned with economic and moral arguments, or José Vargas Ponce, who wrote a Dissertation on bullfights (not published until 1961). Finally, other specialists have allowed the Bullfighting as the result of a personal crisis of the artist, and more recently the political context has been pointed out in order to interpret the series and approach the true intentions of its author, which could well have been various and even contradictory, but in any case openend a new path towards modernity in the representation of this genre, capturing the essence of the party, with its positive and negative aspects, vindicating the role of the people and highlighting its symbolic force and universal dimension.

On the other hand, its necessary to remember that, after the War of Independence and with the return of Fernando VII, there had been a resurgence of bullfighting, which had been prohibited between 1805 and 1808.

It is very plausible that Juan Agustín Ceán Bermúdez -a well-known anti-bullfighting activist- participated in the overall conception of the series, and in fact Goya gave him a set of proofs, the so-called "Ceán Album" (London, British Museum), in which two engravings were included, one of them titled Way of flying -edited later with the Disparates, whose titles, proposed by Ceán himself, present small variations with those published in the preliminary printed sheet of the 1816 edition.  may have drawn inspiration for the choice of subjects and titles from well-known bullfighting publications at the time, such as  Historical Letter on the Origin and Progress of Bullfighting in Spain (Madrid, 1777; reed. in 1801) by Nicolás F. de Moratín or The Art of Bullfighting on Horseback and on Foot (Madrid, 1804) by the master Pepe Hillo (José Delgado).

The announcement of the sale of the edition, composed of 33 engravings under the title Collection of prints invented and engraved with etching by Mr. Francisco de Goya, painter of Chamber of S.M., in which diverse bullfighting suertes are represented, and lances occurred on the occasion of those functions in our bullrings..., appeared on October 28, 1816 in the Diario de Madrid and on December 31 of that year in the Gaceta de Madrid.

As for the plates, they could have suffered the same fate as does of the Disasters and the Disparates. When Goya left for France, they remained at the "Quinta del Sordo" and became the property of his son Javier, who kept them until his death in 1854. They were inherited by his grandson Mariano, who sold them on. In 1855 we know that they were owned by León Pérez de Bobadilla, who paid for a print run of two thousand prints at the price of 17 reales a hundred. A year later, Bobadilla offered them to the Ministry of Public Works, which forwarded them to the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts, which decided not to acquire them because of the abundance of prints devoted to bulls, and he also offered them to the Chalcography, which did not acquire them either. Before 1876 they were sold in Paris to Loizelet, who printed the series for the third time, including seven new prints corresponding to scenes engraved on the back of the plates. On his death in 1886 they passed into the hands of a German dealer, M. Bhin, and before 1899 they were bought by the engraver Ricardo de los Ríos, who took them to Madrid, where a new edition was made in 1905, after which they returned to Paris. In 1914 Carlos Verger, on behalf of Ricardo de los Ríos, offered the 33 plates to the State for 15,000 pesetas, but in the end the acquisition did not take place. In 1920 the Fine Arts Circle of Madrid decide to adquire them and Ricardo de los Ríos took them to Madrid, selling them for 17000 pesetas. The Circle made a print run in 1921 and another in 1928. During the Civil War, the coppers were taken to the National Chalcography to protect them and in 1937 a new print run of 40 collections was made, which remained on deposit at this institution. It was not until 1979 that the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts bought them and they became part of its collections. In 1983 the plates were deaccessioned, cleaned of old inks, chromed by electrolytic process and 200 collections were thrown away.

In addition to the 33 prints of the first edition, from the third edition onwards the seven compositions found on the reverse of the plates of prints no. 1, 2, 6, 7, 11, 16 and 21 were added, prints that had initially been discarded due to faults in the etching of the aquatint and which are identified with a letter (A-G) instead of a number. Five plates, for which proofs have been preserved, have also disappeared.

In the Public Library of Boston (USA) there is a copy with the titles in italics handwritten in pencil by Goya on the prints.

The first plate of the first print in the series is preserved in the National Chalcography (part of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando), with Un caballero en plaza quebrando un rejoncillo con ayuda de un chulo (Tauromaquia A), engraved on the reverse.