Bravo!, plate 38 from Los Caprichos
Medium
Etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Image: 18.5 × 13 cm (7 5/16 × 5 1/8 in.); Plate: 21.6 × 15.1 cm (8 9/16 × 6 in.); Sheet: 30.1 × 20.8 cm (11 7/8 × 8 1/4 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
123799
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Francisco de Goya wrote acidic commentary to accompany each print in his series The Caprices. For Bravo! he noted, “If ears were all that were needed to appreciate it, no one could listen more intelligently.” Some critical readings of this work interpret it as a commentary on Manuel de Godoy’s parties thrown for King Charles IV. Godoy came to Charles’s palace in Madrid as a musician and left it as prime minister; his meteoric rise is often attributed to a liaison with Queen Maria Louisa. Bravo! ...
About the Artist
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes · 1746–1828
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was born on March 30, 1746, in the small Aragonese village of Fuendetodos, Spain, to José Benito de Goya, a master gilder, and Gracia de Lucientes. The fourth of six children in a modest lower-middle-class family, Goya received a basic education before beginning his artistic training at age 14 under the local painter José Luzán y Martínez in Zaragoza, where he sp...