'Merry Folly' from the 'Disparates' (Follies / Irrationalities)
ca. 1815–19 (published 1864)
Medium
Etching,burnished aquatint, drypoint
Dimensions
Plate: 9 5/8 × 13 7/8 in. (24.5 × 35.3 cm) Sheet: 13 3/16 × 18 7/8 in. (33.5 × 48 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1924
Accession Number
24.30.13
Tags
Art Historical Context
Francisco de Goya y Luc, the visionary Spanish artist of the late 18th and early th centuries, created *Merry Folly* as part of his enigmatic final print series, *Disparates* (also known as *Follies* or *Irrationalities*), around 1815–19. Unpublished during Goya's lifetime due to their biting social critique, the plates were not released until 1864. This work captures the artist's evolving pessimism amid Spain's turbulent political landscape, including the Napoleonic Wars and Bourbon restoration, where he lampooned human folly, superstition, and societal absurdities through surreal, dreamlike ...
About the Artist
Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes) · 1746–1828
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) was a Spanish painter and printmaker considered the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Rising from modest provincial origins to become First Court Painter to Charles IV, Goya's career spanned the Enlightenment's optimism and the brutal Napoleonic invasion that shattered it. A mysterious illness in 1793 left him permanently deaf and ...