‘The satirical tone that Goya employs in the Caprichos in which he criticizes prostitution is applied to both the girls and their clients, the latter depicted as plucked chickens. The artist’s comment on this drawing refers to the young men and women’s inevitable end: ‘And to think those about to fall won’t take warning from those already fallen. But there is no remedy: all will fall.’ 1

‘Goya's scene is located in the world of prostitution, symbolized traditionally by birds or by a cage. The half woman/half bird figure balanced on the globe in the upper part of the image 'draws a flock of winged men in contemporary dress, among them members of the upper class, who have flown from the light of wisdom, perceptible in the background, to the darkness of the passions. On the ground, singled out by her white shawl, an old bawd with exaggerated features looks to the heavens with a malevolent expression while her disciples, two young beauties, gleefully pluck and torture one of the victims fallen into their net.' 2

1. Website of the Museo del Prado, Madrid.
2. Stepanek, S.L., Tomlinson, J., Wilson-Bareau, J., Mena Marqués, M.B., et al, Goya: Order & Disorder, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2014, p. 160.