FRANCISCO DE GOYA Y LUCIENTES (1746-1828)

FRANCISCO DE GOYA Y LUCIENTES (1746-1828)
Tale-bearers - Blasts of wind (Soplones)
Plate 48 from: Los Caprichos
etching with burnished aquatint, drypoint and engraving, on laid paper, a very good impression from the First Edition, published by the artist, Madrid, 1799, with bright, sharply-defined highlights, the delicate burnishing in the sky still visible, framed
Plate: 8 x 5⁷⁄₈ in. (203 x 149 mm.)
Sheet: 11³⁄₄ x 8 in. (298 x 203 mm.)

Presumably Manuel Fernández Durán y Pando, Marqués de Perales del Río (1818-1886), Madrid.
Don Pedro Fernández-Durán (1846-1930), Madrid; with his stamp (Lugt 747b); presumably by descent from the above.
Don Tomas de la Maza y Saavedra (1896-1975); gift from the above.
With Herman Shickman Fine Arts, New York.
With Stuart Denenberg, Los Angeles.
Private American Collection; acquired from the above.

Delteil 85; Harris 83

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Lot Essay

‘The subject here again appears to be the clergy or at least those who believe in the clergy. The 1799-1803 Ayala text indicates this: ‘Oral confession. Tale-bearing witches are the most loathsome of all witchery’. The Biblioteca Nacional text is even more explicit: ‘Oral confession does nothing other than fill the ears of nuns with dirty ideas, obscenities and nastiness’. It is possible that this Capricho also concerns Goya's revulsion against denunciations in general to the Holy Tribunal of the Inquisition.’

Johnson, R. S., Francisco Goya, Los Caprichos, R.S. Johnson Fine Art, Chicago, 1992, p. 122.