HISTORY, SCIENCE & PHILOSOPHY 72 Goya’s Masterpiece Desastres De La Guerra: Extraordinary 1863 First Edition, Second Issue, One Of Only 500 Copies, Complete With 80 Original Etchings First edition, second issue, of “the most brutally savage protest against cruelty and war which the visual imagination of man has conceived”—one of only 500 copies in the first printing. Fine, early impressions, with tonal variations in the lavis that disappear in later editions. Napoleon’s invasion of Spain in 1807 and 1808 brought about the abdication of the Bourbon rulers and sparked violent protests against the French. The Madrid uprising of May 2, 1808 marked the start of the armed Spanish resistance, which dragged on in guerilla warfare until 1814. During the war years, Goya vented his horror and outrage at the atrocities committed by soldiers and compatriots alike: “In 80 small, compact images, each etched with acid on copper, Goya told the appalling truth… Never before had a story of man’s inhumanity to man been so compellingly told, every episode reported with the utmost compassion, the human form described with such keen honesty and pitying respect” (Goya in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 25-26). “Nothing in art reflects with more terrible emphasis the horrors of war than Goya’s Desastres de la Guerra… but in the unflinching courage with which he probes right to the heart of social rottenness he proves himself the true satirist who battles with abuses” (Hind, History of Engraving and Etching, 255-56). “These nightmare scenes, depicting atrocities committed by both French and Spanish, are the most brutally savage protest against cruelty and war which the visual imagination of man has conceived” (Oxford Dictionary of Art, 215). Aside from the proofs he made as he worked—of which 82GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco José de. Los Desastres de la Guerra. Madrid, 1863. Total of 80 numbered and titled copperplate etchings done with drypoint, burin, aquatint and lavis, on wove paper with watermark J.G.O. and palmette. Oblong folio, contemporary three-quarter straight-grain plum morocco gilt; clamshell box. $175,000
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDg3OTM=