Blind Singer

Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes)

Ca. 1824–28 (published second half of the 19th century) · Etching, aquatint, drypoint, burin on laid paper · Drawings and Prints

This is one of four etchings closely related to drawings Goya made in Bordeaux. Here, a blind man sits in the foreground playing the guitar and singing. The contorted faces of his audience can hardly be made out in the background, because the aquatint has been darkened by cross-hatching in etching. Goya had explored the subject of a blind musician and his audience in a design for a tapestry, reproduced in an early etching from about 1778 (see 22.63.29). But the attractive passersby of that scene have been replaced here by demonic faces emerging from a dark background.

Artist

Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes)

Date

Ca. 1824–28 (published second half of the 19th century)

Medium

Etching, aquatint, drypoint, burin on laid paper

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1927