Mattia Jona, Master Drawings and Prints, Japanese Prints - Piazzetta Guastalla 5, 20122 Milan, Italy, tel (+39) 02 8053315

FRANCISCO GOYA (Fuendetodos 1746 - Bordeaux 1828) QUAL LA DESCANONAN! (How they pluck her!)
Etching and burnished aquatint, plate 21 from 'Los Caprichos' (1797-98); Harris 56, III, 11. An impression from the eleventh edition (1929), limited to 100 copies, printed in sepia ink on laid paper with watermark 'Guarro'. With the blind stamp of the 'Calcografia Nacional'. With margins, generally in very good condition. To the platemark 210 x 146 mm, the entire sheet measuring 340 x 253 mm.

One of the most influential series of graphic images in the history of Western art, 'Los Caprichos' provides a satirical and damning look at 18th-century Spanish society. In the 80 etchings that comprise the series, Goya depicted the peasantry's superstitious belief in witchcraft, the arrogance of the nobility, and the widespread corruption of the Catholic Church. First published in 1799, only a few copies of the first edition were sold. Despite Goya's attempts to veil the critical nature of the series, he felt it necessary to withdraw the prints from circulation and make a gift of the plates and of the first edition's unsold sets to the King Carlos IV.