FRANCISCO DE GOYA Y LUCIENTES (1746-1828), When day breaks we will be off (Si amanece; nos vamos) Plate 71 from: Los Caprichos

FRANCISCO DE GOYA Y LUCIENTES (1746-1828)
When day breaks we will be off (Si amanece; nos vamos)
Plate 71 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, the sky still dark, balancing well with the etched figure with outspread wings, framed
Plate: 7³⁄₄ x 5⁷⁄₈ in. (197 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 108; Harris 106

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Lot Essay

‘The Alcala text of 1799-1803, appearing to relate this work to Plate 69, Sopla (‘It is blowing’), reads: ‘Procuresses (or pimps) having a night conference to discuss the means of carrying these creatures (young boys) in their belts (or girdles)’. There is perhaps more significance to this print than first appears. Light, in this case ‘dawn’, was the most fundamental symbol of the ‘Spirit of Enlightenment’, a symbol which Goya used as a tool for many of his Caprichos etchings. Pérez Sanchez, in his introduction to Goya and the Spirit of Enlightenment expressed his feeling that this particular etching was ‘an emblem and summary of the artist's beliefs’. For Pérez Sanchez: ‘...Dawn - that is, the clarity of the sun, the triumph of reborn light- banishes the spirits, witches, and hobgoblins, whose domains are darkness and night. That dawn was the luminous splendor of science, of knowledge, of revealed and triumphant truth.’ This ‘truth’, expressed through light, was to follow the horrors of the night, symbolic of the previous decades in the history of Spain.’

Johnson, R. S., Francisco Goya, Los Caprichos, R.S. Johnson Fine Art, Chicago, 1992, p. 168.