The Custody is as Barbarous as the Crime ("The Little Prisoner")
Medium
Etching and burin on cream laid paper
Dimensions
Image: 9.9 × 7.4 cm (3 15/16 × 2 15/16 in.); Plate: 11 × 8.5 cm (4 3/8 × 3 3/8 in.); Sheet: 25.3 × 18.4 cm (10 × 7 1/4 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
52670
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
The Custody Is as Barbarous as the Crime, one of only three irregular plates produced for the Disasters of War series, was not printed and bound into the volume like the other working proofs but was added at the end. The etching features a prisoner crouching with his wrists and ankles restrained. Line in addition to aquatint creates the exceedingly dark atmosphere. Goya pays special attention to the prisoner’s contorted posture, the tangled mess of his hair, and the reflection of dim light on th...
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...