Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (Spanish, 1746–1828). <em>And So Was His Grandfather (Asta su abuelo)</em>, 1797–1798. Aquatint on laid paper, Sheet: 11 7/8 x 7 15/16 in. (30.2 x 20.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, A. Augustus Healy Fund, Frank L. Babbott Fund, and Carll H. de Silver Fund, 37.33.39 (Photo: , 37.33.39_PS9.jpg)

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (Spanish, 1746–1828). And So Was His Grandfather (Asta su abuelo), 1797–1798. Aquatint on laid paper, Sheet: 11 7/8 x 7 15/16 in. (30.2 x 20.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, A. Augustus Healy Fund, Frank L. Babbott Fund, and Carll H. de Silver Fund, 37.33.39 (Photo: , 37.33.39_PS9.jpg)

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This is one of my favorite of Los Caprichos. Do you have any guesses as to what it might be trying to say?

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In this scene, a donkey is represented in his bedclothes, studying his lineage of past donkeys. The donkey is supposed to represent the aristocracy and the contradiction that as the "enlightened ones," they are nothing more than jackasses.

It also comments on the idea of lineage and, specifically, the ridiculousness of one Prime Minister who was said to have hired genealogists to uncover his venerable origins. The family tree they prepared was so large and absurd that it claimed he was the descendant of the Gothic Kings of Spain.

I think it is one of his most searing and visually effective of Goya's critiques.

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And So Was His Grandfather (Asta su abuelo)

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes

European Art

The Caprices (Los Caprichos) is a set of eighty etchings created between 1797 and 1798. On view are thirteen examples of the Brooklyn Museum’s rare “trial proof” set, which is composed of early impressions of a print made by the artist prior to the published edition. In the first part of the series, Goya critiques the characters, institutions, and values of early modern Spanish society; the second focuses on bizarre and macabre imagery.

The most famous image, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (El sueño de la razon produce monstruos), conveys a purposeful ambiguity regarding the conflict between Spanish religiosity and Enlightenment thought: sueño may refer both to the sleep or absence of reason, and to the dream of reason (reason unchecked) that produces monsters. This idea reappears later in the exhibition in Robert Longo’s work.

PORTFOLIO/SERIES Los Caprichos, Plate 39

ARTIST Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Spanish, 1746–1828

MEDIUM Aquatint on laid paper

Place Made: Spain

DATES 1797–1798

DIMENSIONS Sheet: 11 7/8 x 7 15/16 in. (30.2 x 20.2 cm) Image: 7 15/16 x 5 1/2 in. (20.2 x 14 cm) (show scale)

INSCRIPTIONS Upper right in plate: "39."; lower center in plate: "Asta su Abuelo."

COLLECTIONS European Art

ACCESSION NUMBER 37.33.39

CREDIT LINE A. Augustus Healy Fund, Frank L. Babbott Fund, and Carll H. de Silver Fund

EXHIBITIONS

Proof: Francisco Goya, Sergei Eisenstein, Robert Longo

MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view

CAPTION Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (Spanish, 1746–1828). And So Was His Grandfather (Asta su abuelo), 1797–1798. Aquatint on laid paper, Sheet: 11 7/8 x 7 15/16 in. (30.2 x 20.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, A. Augustus Healy Fund, Frank L. Babbott Fund, and Carll H. de Silver Fund, 37.33.39 (Photo: , 37.33.39_PS9.jpg)

STATE Trial proof

IMAGE overall, 37.33.39_PS9.jpg., 2017

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