Aesop, after Velázquez
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
Plate: 11 5/8 × 8 7/16 in. (29.5 × 21.5 cm) Sheet: 16 1/8 × 11 5/16 in. (41 × 28.7 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Henry Walters, by exchange, 1931
Accession Number
31.31.16
Tags
Art Historical Context
This etching, titled *Aesop, after Velázquez*, captures Francisco de Goya y Lucientes' masterful 1778 homage to Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez's earlier Baroque portrait of the ancient Greek fabulist Aesop. Goya, a rising star in 18th-century Spain, meticulously reproduced Velázquez's depiction of the storyteller—often imagined as a wise, humbly dressed figure—in this intimate print. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department, measures a modest plate size of 11 5/8 × 8 7/16 inches, gifted in 1931 through Henry Walters' exchange. Created via etching, a prec...