Two young women chasing and sweeping bird figures with mens' heads out of a door, encouraged by two old men in religious habits. Etching by F. Goya, 1796/98.

  • Goya, Francisco, 1746-1828.
Date:
[1796/98]
Reference:
36690i
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Description

This image refers to the activities of prostitutes and plays on the meaning of the word 'desplumar' literally meaning to pluck, but in this instance the meaning has acquired another meaning to 'fleece' or 'rob'

Publication/Creation

[1796/98]

Physical description

1 print : etching with aquatint ; platemark 21.5 x 15.1 cm

Lettering

Ya van desplumados. English translation of lettering: "They are already plucked" Bears number: 20

Reference

Wellcome Collection 36690i

Notes

"Los Caprichos" are a set of eighty etchings/aquatints made by Francisco Goya y Lucientes between the years 1796-98. They were first published and advertised for sale in Madrid papers in 1799. Very few copies were purchased and in 1803, having sold only twenty-seven copies, Goya offered the copperplates together with 240 unsold sets to Charles IV in exchange for a pension for his son, Javier. The next edition was published in the mid-nineteenth century and the last edition was made in Madrid in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War. Goya made these prints after a serious illness that rendered him deaf. The prints are of satirical nature, part fantasy being full of witches, monsters, grotesques, prostitutes and part men part beast figures. They were in part a series of caricatures which satirise the vices and follies of Spanish society, illustrated by witches sporting monk's habits. The words of the inscriptions themselves imply double meanings, which reinforce the satire

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