Soplones; (Tale-bearers - Blasts of wind); plate 48 from Los Caprichos

 

Francisco Goya

  1746 - 1828 (biography)

1797 -98; printed later (1881 - 1900) 

etching and burnished aquatint 

8 3/16 x 6" platemark; 7-1/2 x 5-3/16" image 

not signed, as usual 

around 210 (fifth edition) or 230 (sixth edition). 

title, printed in lower margin within platemark 

Harris 83; D.85; Lefort & Hofman 48. 

cream wove 

fifth or sixth edition of twelve 

Real Academia 

18715 

SOLD

Plate 48 of the Caprichos. The red crayon drawing for "Soplones" is in the Prado and the plate is in the Calcografia in Madrid where eleven of the 12 editions was printed. This impression is probably from the 5th or 6th edition after the plate was beveled and most of the burnishiing has been lost, though the etched lines are still printed well. The false biting in the lower margin is gone, indicating at least a 5th edition. The margins of the paper have been trimmed to 1-1/2 - 2" outside the plate mark. Goya commented on this work "The tale-bearing witches are the most irritating in all witchcraft and the least intelligent in that art; if they really knew something they wouldn't blast about it."