73 BAUMAN RARE BOOKS fewer than 500 have survived to the present day—he made no other impressions of the Desastres prints during his lifetime. Not until 1863, 35 years after his death, was the first of seven posthumous editions of the Desastres published by Spain’s Royal Academy. Perhaps because Goya did not intend to see Desastres through publication, the series as a whole is somewhat less coherent than the two series of prints Goya issued while alive, Los Caprichos and Tauromaquia. However, Goya did present to his friend Ceán Bermúdez an album containing working proofs of the 80 Desastres plates (plus five not included in the 1863 edition), united under the manuscript title ‘Fatal consequences of the bloody war in Spain with Bonaparte and other emphatic caprices in 85 prints.’ The Royal Academy’s 1863 edition was the first to unite these images into one series under the title Desastres de la Guerra, and the first to incorporate Goya’s handwritten captions, as taken from Bermúdez’s album. This work is most scarce and extremely difficult to obtain, as over the years copies have found their way to museums or to print dealers. This is a secondissue copy of the first printing, with corrections to the captions of plates 9, 32-36, 39 and 47. Harris Ib. Owner signature on front flyleaf (blank, laid in loose). Light rubbing to sound and attractive contemporary moroccogilt binding. Plates fine. An excellent copy of this rarity, with clean, sharp impressions. “The most brutally savage protest against cruelty and war which the visual imagination of man has conceived.” – Oxford Dictionary of Art
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