FRANCISCO DE GOYA Y LUCIENTES (1746-1828), What a tailor can do! (Lo que puede un Sastre!) Plate 52 from: Los Caprichos

FRANCISCO DE GOYA Y LUCIENTES (1746-1828)
What a tailor can do! (Lo que puede un Sastre!)
Plate 52 from: Los Caprichos
etching with burnished aquatint, drypoint and engraving, on laid paper, a good impression from the First Edition, published by the artist, Madrid, 1799, framed
Plate: 8³⁄₈ x 5⁷⁄₈ in. (213 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 89; Harris 87

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Lot Essay

Prado manuscript: ‘How often some ridiculously appearing fellow can be suddenly transformed into a presumptuous pretender who appears to be important but really is nothing at all. All this can be accomplished through the ability of a tailor and the foolishness of those who make judgements on the basis of (external) appearances.’

‘Here the Ayala text of 1799-1803, as usual, is far more explicit: ‘Superstition brings an ignorant public to worship a clothed tree trunk (actually a ‘scare-crow’.) The Madrid Biblioteca Nacional text is even more explicitly ‘church’ oriented: ‘Superstition in general would have a whole town on its knees and worshipping with fear any old tree trunk dressed up to look holy’. The subject of this work appears to concern the hypocrisy of the clergy's fooling of the general public.’

Johnson, R. S., Francisco Goya, Los Caprichos, R.S. Johnson Fine Art, Chicago, 1992, p. 130.