Heavier than a Dead Donkey, plate 1 from Los Proverbios
1815–17, published 1864
Medium
Etching and aquatint, with scratches, in brown on ivory wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 21.5 × 32.4 cm (8 1/2 × 12 13/16 in.); Plate: 24.5 × 35.5 cm (9 11/16 × 14 in.); Sheet: 35.3 × 48.7 cm (13 15/16 × 19 3/16 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
44873
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Four decades after the artist’s death, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts acquired 18 intaglio plates from an unfinished series by Goya. In an attempt to ascribe a theme to their enigmatic imagery, the prints were published with the title Los Proverbios (Proverbs). A handful of early trial proofs were later discovered on which the artist had inscribed Disparate, which roughly translates as folly, nonsense, absurdity, or fantasy. In this print, a group of women use a blanket to toss straw or rag dol...
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...