Until Death, plate 55 from Los Caprichos
Medium
Etching and aquatint in warm black on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Image: 19 × 13.2 cm (7 1/2 × 5 1/4 in.); Plate: 21.5 × 15.1 cm (8 1/2 × 6 in.); Sheet: 30.1 × 20.7 cm (11 7/8 × 8 3/16 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
123816
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Goya’s Caprices series scathingly attacks the hypocrisy and superstition the artist saw throughout contemporary Spanish culture. Glued to her dressing table mirror, the crone in this image sees only her fashionable trappings, not her wrinkled visage. In the background, young courtiers mock her futile vanity with shielded laughs and amused glances. And yet, though the shortsighted pathetic creature may have one foot in the grave, it is encased in an elegantly exposed stocking.
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...