Because she was susceptible (No. 32)

Series TitleLos Caprichos

Artist Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (Spanish, 1746 - 1828)

Date1799

MediumEtching with aquatint and other intaglio media

DimensionsPlate: 7 7/16 × 5 7/8 inches (18.89 × 14.92 cm)
Mat: 21 1/4 × 16 inches (53.98 × 40.64 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number33-1066

Edition/State/Proof1st ed.

On View

Not on view

Collections

Prints

Terms

Exhibition History

Inked in Time: Six Centuries of Printed Masterpieces, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, February 22-May 31, 1998, no cat.

Dürer to Tiepolo: Works on Paper, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, April 3-October 7, 2007, no cat., as Because She Was Susceptible, from Los Caprichos.

Dürer to Tiepolo: Works on Paper, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, December 12, 2012-June 9, 2013, no cat., as Because She Was Susceptible, from Los Caprichos.

Gallery Label

This print is part of a series entitled the Caprichos (Caprices), an indictment of the corruption of the 18th-century Spanish court and the horror of its Inquisition. Here, Goya focuses on the despair of a woman who had been seduced by a younger lover, became pregnant by him and was enticed into the murder of her husband. This melancholy scene is the only one of the series executed wholly in wash-like aquatint, a method in which rosin particles are applied over portions of the copper plate to resist the corrosive process of the acid bath that creates pitted areas to carry the ink. Variations in tone may be achieved by successive biting and applications of rosin.

Provenance

With Alden Galleries, Kansas City, MO, October 25, 1933;

Purchased from Alden Galleries by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1933.

Published References

The Changing Image: Prints by Francisco Goya, exh. cat. (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1975), 94.

Nigel Glendinning, “Goya on 'Women in the Caprichos': The Case of Castillo's Wife,” Apollo 107 (1978): 132.

Tomás Harris, Goya Engravings and Lithographs, vol. 2 (Oxford: Bruno Cassirer, 1964), no. 67, p. 103, (repro.), as Por que fue sensible. (Because she was susceptible.).

Pierre Gassier and Juliet Wilson-Bareau, The Life and Complete Work of Francisco Goya, 2^nd ed. (New York: Harrison House, 1981), no. 515, pp. 163, 180, (repro.), as Por que fue sensible (Because she was susceptible).

Alfonso E. Pérez-Sánchez and Julián Gállego, Goya: The Complete Etchings and Lithographs (Munich: Prestel, 1995), no. 32, p. 52, (repro.), as Because she was susceptible.

George L. McKenna, Prints, 1460-1995 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 134-35, 138, 139n18, 139n19, 314, (repro.), as Caprices (Los Caprichos): Por que fue sensible (Because she was susceptible.).

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