That is the worst of it!, plate 74 from The Disasters of War
1815/20, published 1863
Medium
Etching and burnishing on ivory wove paper with gilt edges
Dimensions
Image: 15.3 × 19.3 cm (6 1/16 × 7 5/8 in.); Plate: 17.5 × 21.5 cm (6 15/16 × 8 1/2 in.); Sheet: 24 × 33.7 cm (9 1/2 × 13 5/16 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
124927
Art Historical Context
Francisco Goya's *That is the worst of!*, plate 74 his seminal series *The Disasters War*, captures the raw anguish of conflict during the Peninsular War (18081814). Created between 1815 and 1820 but published posthumously in 1863, this etching belongs to a cycle of 82 prints where Goya documented the brutal realities of Napoleon's invasion of Spain, blending eyewitness horror with biting social commentary. As a master of Romanticism, Goya abandoned heroic ideals for unflinching realism, making this series one of the first graphic protests against war's inhumanity—a precursor to modern photojo...
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...