Prado manuscript: ‘Keeping nails so long is so pernicious that it is even prohibited in Witchcraft.’

‘The meaning behind this etching could perhaps be better understood by referring to the preparatory drawing in the Prado in which the witch to the right is wearing a monk's habit. There is also a double meaning in the Spanish word ufias (nails). In an 1852 Spanish-English dictionary (compiled by Velazquez de la Cadena) we are told that hincar la ufia or meter la ufia means to overcharge or to sell at an exorbitant price. In this respect, the Ayala text of 1799-1803 is more explicit than that of the Prado: ‘Public officials who also are thieves excuse themselves and cover up one for another’. The Madrid Biblioteca Nacional text is even more specific: ‘Public officials who rob the State, help each other and sustain each other. Their leader raises up his neck (cuello) and hides them with his monstrous wings’. This phrase is perhaps more complicated in that the word cuello, besides ‘neck’, also can signify ‘the high collar of a priest's garment which perhaps brings us back to the monk on the right in the preliminary drawing at the Prado.’

Johnson, R. S., Francisco Goya, Los Caprichos, R.S. Johnson Fine Art, Chicago, 1992, pp. 128-130.