Francisco Goya: Master Engraver

About Francisco Goya

Master engravers are few, and Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, alongside Rembrandt and Dürer, is one of them.

Considered one of the most important artists of the late 18th and 19th century, Francisco Goya is thought to be one of the last Old Masters and one of the first to influence modern art.

Born in 1746 to a middle-class family, Goya began studying painting at the age of 14. Early in his career, Goya became the court painter for the Spanish Crown where he painted portraits of Spanish aristocrats and royalty. However, he is best known for his later paintings, drawings, and engravings which often critically depict the political and societal upheavals of his time. Goya’s powerful work inspired many well-known and historically significant artists of the 19th and 20th centuries.

No one knows exactly when Goya’s interest in engraving originated, although it is believed that he encountered this discipline for the first time in Italy during his travels. A tedious and labour-intensive process involving acidic substances, hard work on copper plates, and the handling of intricate inks[1], through the process, the artist becomes more of a craftsman, engaging himself physically with the creation of each plate.

Goya’s first grand undertaking with engraving was with the series Caprichos published in 1799. Even though the artist was committed to the project and bet his entire wealth on this series of 80 etchings, it was not the success he had hoped for. The failure of the project was complete, leaving the artist penniless. Nevertheless, Goya did not lose his devotion to the craft and persisted with his second series offered here, Desastres de la Guerra.

The Desastres de la Guerra Series

In Desastres de la Guerra, his message is universal: “Cruelty, fanaticism, terror, injustice, misery, death… are the ‘fatal consequences’ of war and political repression, and their gravity is such that the artist does not hide them behind anecdotal options and heroic portraits of particular individuals. The victim of war, and those responsible for it, is the collective man. […] Some traditional critics see Goya’s attitude as being French-like, while others insist on his nationalist patriotism. Today, it seems accepted that the denunciation of the atrocities of war is directed towards each of the participants in the conflict, regardless of their national ties.”

Featured in our Spring Editions auction, this series, printed in the workshop of Laurenciano Potenciano in 1863, is an almost complete suite; 76 engravings out of the 80 created circa 1810, are available as a single lot.

In the catalogue raisonné on Goya’s engravings, Tomás Harris presents Desastres in perspective of his oeuvre: “Of Goya’s two hundred and sixty-nine engravings, only one hundred and thirty were published in his lifetime, some in very limited issues. Eighteen compositions are known to us only from rare, often unique, working proofs. From the remaining one hundred and twenty-one engravings, editions were made for the first time in the second half of the nineteenth century, bringing posthumous fame to some of Goya’s greatest creations.

In spite of the prejudice of print collectors against “proofs with letters”, the two main series, the Caprichos and Desastres, which were issued for the first time with the titles engraved are perhaps the most popular of all Goya’s works. The anonymous author of the introduction sheet of the Desastres published by the Real Academia de San Fernando in 1863 described the legends given to each plate as “an additional feat of genius of the Author: Concise, cutting, stinging, they add strength, were this still possible, to that which the artist had already stated… a brief phrase a single word.”[3]

“Most of the plates in this great series [Desastres] of engraving were inspired by an incident Goya witnessed during the Peninsular War[4] of 1808-14 and the terrible famine in Madrid in 1811-12. […] Between the completion of the Caprichos in 1799 and the beginning of the Desastres, little is known of Goya’s activities as an engraver except for two landscapes of which the copperplates are preserved in the Calcografia. These plates were cut in half by the artist and the backs were used for Plates 13, 14, 15 and 30 of the Desastres, which were 20, 23, 22 and 21 according to the numbers first engraved on them. […]

The fact that Goya should have sacrificed them in this way is a strong indication that at this stage he was desperately short of working materials. In fact, not only did he cut up and use the backs of previously engraved plates, but a careful examination reveals that he also used badly annealed, badly polished, oxidised or in other ways defective plates, and in some cases he seems even to have reworked previously engraved plates after scraping and burnishing them. The war may have been responsible for the shortage not only of copperplates but also of etching grounds and varnishes, since many plates in the series show evidence of false biting, due probably to inferior materials having been used. […] After the expulsion of Napoleon’s troops in 1814 and on receipt of new supplies of materials, Goya was able to embark on the technically more perfect Tauromaquia engravings, returning to the methods he had used with such outstanding success in the Caprichos series.”[5]

Tomás Harris dives into details in the conception of the series that started in 1810 and divides it into three main groups. This division is chronological and stylistic, from the early plates featuring small figures in compact groups in the center of the composition to the board style of the last plates. Plate 1 is separate and was designed as the frontispiece, probably after 1814. Plates 2 to 47, made after 1810, depict the horrors of war. Plates 48 to 64 record the terrible famine which occurred in Madrid between September 1811 and August 1812, and Plates 68 to 80 are named “caprichos enfanticos” with a more mature style and free invention made probably after 1814.[6]

Harris further explains why this project, started in 1810, led to a publication in 1863, decades after the death of the artist in 1828: “It is strange that no contemporary edition was ever made of this important series of engravings. Possibly by the time they were finished, the war and famine scenes were not a great appeal and Goya was probably unwilling to risk another financial failure such had he had experienced with the Caprichos. It was a time of stern repression and the publication of the satirical and violently anti-clerical subjects of some of the “caprichos enfáticos” would certainly have been dangerous. These facts would account for a postponement of publication. Also, Goya himself tells us that he fell seriously ill in the winter of 1819 (on the painting of himself attended by his doctor is an inscription which reads: “Goya in gratitude to his friend Arrieta for the skill and care with which he saved his life in his acute and dangerous illness suffered at the end of the year 1819 at the age of 73. He painted it in 1820.”) and on his recovery he was planning to leave Spain and settle permanently in France.

That Goya did not attempt to make an edition of the Desastres in Madrid before leaving for France is borne out by the investigations of Catharina Boelcke-Astor, who showed that the copperplates were stored away in safes by Goya’s son, Javier, where they remained until the latter’s death in 1854. Eventually, in November 1862, they were acquired by the Academia de San Fernando from D. Jaimé Machén for 28,000 reales, together with the eighteen plates of the Proverbios series. The plates were then cleaned and some trial proofs were made before the titles were engraved.”[7]

Desastres de la Guerra is a monument of Spanish and human history. It is a testament to what the artist witnessed during the war and the consecutive famine that raged in Spain at the beginning of the 19th century. Goya engaged with pain and horror in his engraving, pushing himself artistically and mentally to display the hard truths of war, not the fantasized glory of the conquest, but the death and misery of the people. Still, Goya never let go of his hope for a safer future; his series ends with the 82nd plate, which is full of yearning for a safe haven, emulating a lost paradise with love and food under an olive tree.

About the Auction

Our spring Editions auction is available for bidding online April 14 to May 1, 2025.

This auction features a collection of prints by renowned Canadian and international artists including Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, David Blackwood, General Idea, Dana Claxton, Henry Moore, Jim Dine, Rembrandt, Damien Hirst, Robert Motherwell, and Kenneth Noland. Featured works include geometric studies by Josef Albers, Jean Paul Riopelle’s Étée Indien, woodcuts by Sybil Andrews, Greg Curnoe’s 1980 screenprint Doc Morton Front Wheel, Joan Mitchell’s Bedford I, and 76 prints from Goya’s Los Desastres de la Guerra suite from 1863.

Public previews at our Toronto gallery, located at 100 Broadview Avenue, Toronto.
Sunday, April 27 from 12 to 4 pm
Monday, April 28 from 10 am to 5 pm
Tuesday, April 29 from 10 am to 5 pm
Or by appointment.

View the online gallery.

Please contact us for condition reports or any further information.

[1]https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/custom/goya/index.php?chapter=15
[2]In. https://www.realacademiabellasartessanfernando.com/goya/goya-en-la-calcografia-nacional/desastres-de-la-guerra/
[3]In. Harris, Tomás. Goya: Engravings and lithographs. San Francisco: Alan Wofsy Fine Arts, 1983,
p20
[4]The Peninsular War (1808–1814) was a conflict during the Napoleonic Wars, where France, under Napoleon Bonaparte, fought against Spain, Portugal, and the United Kingdom for control of the Iberian Peninsula. It began when Napoleon invaded Spain and Portugal, seeking to enforce his Continental System. The war saw fierce guerrilla resistance in Spain and significant British involvement, leading to Napoleon’s eventual defeat. The famine which occurred in Spain from September 1811 to August 1812 claimed over twenty thousand victims.
[5]Ibid. p139
[6]Ibid. p140-141
[7]id