Of What Will He Die? (No. 40)

Series TitleLos Caprichos

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

Date1799

MediumEtching with aquatint and other intaglio media

DimensionsPlate: 7 5/16 × 5 1/8 inches (18.57 × 13.02 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number33-1074

Edition/State/Proof1st ed.

On View

Not on view

Collections

Prints

Terms

Exhibition History

Goya/Chagoya, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, August 4, 2012-February 3, 2013, no cat., as Of What Will He Die? (No. 40, De que mal morira?).

Gallery Label

Of What Will He Die? features a donkey-doctor taking the pulse of a bedridden man. Goya’s replacement of a human with a donkey (a symbol of ignorance) suggests that this doctor is nothing but a sham. Goya’s caption for this print reads: “The doctor is excellent, musing, thoughtful, deliberate, earnest. What else could one ask for?” While Goya lampoons the medical profession, Chagoya shifts the focus. His donkeydoctor attends the reclining figure of Fidel Castro. When Castro celebrated his 40th anniversary as president of Cuba in 1999, many wondered about the health of the Communist leader. Today, we know that Castro is ill. False notices of his death circulate from time to time.

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

Tomás Harris, Goya Engravings and Lithographs (Oxford: Bruno Cassirer, 1964), 1: pp. 90, 102, 111; 2: no. 75, p. 112, (repro.), as De que mal morira? (Of what ill will he die?).

Pierre Gassier and Juliet Wilson-Bareau, The Life and Complete Work of Francisco Goya, 2^nd ed. (New York: Harrison House, 1981), no. 529, pp. 126, 128, 180-81, (repro.), as De que mal morira? (Of what ill will he die?).

Alfonso E. Pérez-Sánchez and Julián Gállego, Goya: The Complete Etchings and Lithographs (Munich: Prestel, 1995), no. 40, p. 56, (repro.), as Of what ill will he die?.

George L. McKenna, Prints, 1460-1995 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 134, 314, as Caprices (Los Caprichos).

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