“Le petit prisonnier”. (The Little Prisoner)
Goya etching from The Disasters of War.
Artist: Goya, Francisco. (Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes). Born 1746. Died 1828
Title: Tan Bárbara la seguridad como el delito (The punishment is as barbarous as the crime). Also known as "The Little Prisoner".
Date: Date of creation: c. 1808. First issued in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, vol. XXII, Paris, 1867.
Medium: Etching, drypoint & aquatint on laid paper.
Signature: Unsigned. Publisher & printer noted in the plate below the image:
“Gazette des Beaux-Arts”. "Imp. Delâtre, Paris".
Notes: The Custody Is as Barbarous as the Crime, one of only three irregular plates Goya produced for the Disasters of War series, was not printed and bound into the volume like the other working proofs but was added at the end. The etching features a prisoner crouching with his wrists and ankles restrained. Line in addition to aquatint creates the exceedingly dark atmosphere. Goya pays special attention to the prisoner’s contorted posture, the tangled mess of his hair, and the reflection of dim light on the chains binding his arms.
When Napoleon's troops invaded Spain in 1808, Goya was over 60 years old and already known for his subversive artworks mocking political, social and religious hypocrisy. But his series The Disasters of War broke new ground. Unflinchingly, he depicted mutilation, torture, rape and other almost unimaginable atrocities. Never before had a story of man's inhumanity to man been so compellingly told in such detail, honesty and immediacy. The series prefigured wartime photojournalism and helped the artist earn his reputation as "the first modern artist". Robert Hughes, in his 2003 book "Goya", calls The Disasters of War "the greatest anti-war manifesto in the history of art." Goya feared political repercussions from the repressive regime if he published the series and it was never published in his lifetime. Aside from the proofs he made as he worked, he printed no other impressions of The Disasters of War.
The other two irregular plates mentioned above also depict chained prisoners and when combined with "The Little Prisoner" some scholars have suggested that the "tryptych"can be seen as an oblique genuflect to the crucifixion of Jesus and the two thieves on Golgotha. Considering Goya's allegiance to the new Enlightenment school of Neoclassical art and his fervent anticlericalism, such a reading is unlikely to say the least.
Condition: The etching is in excellent condition. It has a sharp impression and plate mark.
Size: Plate size: 107x84 mm. Matted in museum quality materials. Guaranteed to be from the original 1867 edition by the Gazette des Beaux-Arts.
References: Delteil 31, Harris 26.
Item No: ART 064
