Allá vá eso

FRANCISCO DE GOYA (1746-1828)

Print number 66 of the Los Caprichos series, 1799.

12th edition, 1937, Calcografía Nacional.

Etching and aquatint on old Japanese paper with seal of the Ministerio Instrucción Pública.

Numbered on the reverse “11”.

Good condition. Full margins.

In the collection of engravings of Los Caprichos Goya acidly portrays the world of witchcraft, which already at the end of the 18th century was more a symptom of backwardness and ignorance than a reason for terror. For enlightened thought, witchcraft was the most palpable manifestation of a perverse education that was transmitted among women of the lowest social extraction.

In the engraving of Allá va eso Goya wanted to capture a scene of initiation into witchcraft through learning magical flights. Thus in the manuscript of the Librería Nacional Goya noted: “Las viejas astutas son las que pierden a las jobenes; las echan a volar y las enseñan a ser sierpes y garduñas de los bolsillos” (“The clever old women are the ones who lose the young women; They make them fly and teach them to be snakes and pocket martens.”)

Mockingly representing witchcraft meant, in turn, a criticism by extension of the ecclesiastical establishment, which under the pretext of fighting it still gave rise to these superstitions about the devil and his entourage, maintaining the fidelity of the credulous under the sign of obscurantism and the fear.

It is not surprising that as soon as Goya published Los Caprichos he encountered problems with the Holy Inquisition, to the point that he had to withdraw his prints from sale, and in a clever move, give the unsold plates and prints to the King, in order to protect them.