Plate 78 from "The Disasters of War" (Los Desastres de la Guerra): 'He defends himself well' (Se defiende bien)

Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes)

1814–15 (published 1863) · Etching, drypoint, burin, burnisher · Drawings and Prints

Published in 1802, Giovanni Battista Casti’s political fable "Gli animali parlanti" (The talking animals) provided the source for the present print. Casti’s prologue justified the need for "enshrouding with the veil of allegory certain bold truths," an equally fitting description of Goya’s approach to the final group from the Disasters, to which this work belongs. In the fable, disputes in the animal kingdom stand in for the antagonism between despotic and liberal regimes, much as they might in this scene of a bucking horse menaced by a pack of foxes and hounds. The horse could be a reference to constitutional monarchies, and its animal opponents stand-ins for reactionary forces.

Artist

Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes)

Date

1814–15 (published 1863)

Medium

Etching, drypoint, burin, burnisher

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Purchase, Jacob H. Schiff Bequest, 1922