Francisco de Goya y Lucientes
Born Fuendetodos, Spain, 1746Died Bordeaux, France, 1828
Francisco de Goya y Lucientes created a series of 82 prints called The Disasters of War, between 1810 and 1820. This was a private project of Goya’s that was never published in his lifetime. These prints were not commissioned by a patron and as a result, they were nonpartisan and broke with the historical convention of victors depicting wars.
The series unflinchingly documented the barbarity of war, including mutilation, torture, rape, and many other atrocities committed by French and Spanish soldiers during the Peninsula War (1808-1814). This specific print is the third plate in the series of 82 taken from the fourth edition of The Disasters of War published from Goya’s original plates by the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid, Spain in 1906.
