Plate 1 from "Los Caprichos": Self-portrait
Medium
Etching, aquatint, drypoint and burin
Dimensions
Plate: 8 9/16 in. × 6 in. (21.8 × 15.2 cm) Sheet: 11 5/8 x 8 5/16 in. (29.5 x 21.1 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of M. Knoedler & Co., 1918
Accession Number
18.64(1)
Tags
Art Historical Context
Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, a pioneering Spanish artist of the late Enlightenment, opens his groundbreaking series *Los Caprich* (1799) with this striking self-portrait as Plate1. Created amid Spain's social and political turmoil—including the artist's own recent deafness and disillusionment with superstition and folly—*Los Caprichos* 80 prints that boldly satirize human vices, clerical corruption, and irrationality. By leading with his own likeness, Goya positions himself as both creator and critic, inviting viewers into a world of dark humor and moral commentary. Masterfully executed in ...
About the Artist
Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes)|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 ...