Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes. 1746-1828.
Felipe III, Rey de España (after Velasquez). 1778. Etching. Delteil 6, Harris 5. Early printing in black ink, before the bevel. 14 7/8 x 12 1/8 (sheet 16 1/8 x 13 3/8). Early printing in black ink, before the bevel. 14 7/8 x 12 1/8 (sheet 16 1/8 x 13 3/8). Printed on thick cream laid paper. Collector’s seals verso: 1. Kupferstick Sammlung der Könige museen Staatliche Graphische Sammlung in Munich ; in 1905 it was renamed the Royal Print Room; in 1949 it becamethe State Graphic Collection. 2. Kupfersticht der Staatlichen Museen, Berlin (Lugt 2482 – without date) -- mark for duplicates; 3. K.F. von Nagler (Lugt 2529). A fine impression with important provenance. $2,750.
Los Capricios
Y aun no se van! (And still they don't go!) 1799. Etching and medium grain aquatint. 8 3/8 x 6 (sheet 12 1/8 x 9). Series: Los Caprichos, plate 59. Delteil 73; Harris 71.III.3/of 12. (c.1868), with the plate in good condition. A fine impression printed in black/brown ink on warm white wove paper. Numbered and titled in the plate; unsigned as issued. $1,250.
No hay quien nos desate? (Can't anyone untie us?) 1799. Etching and fine grain aquatint. 8 3/8 x 6 (sheet 12 5/8 x 8 3/4). Series: Los Caprichos, plate 75. Delteil 112; Harris 110.III.2/of 12. (c.1855), with the plate in fair condition. A fine impression printed in black/brown ink on warm white wove paper. Numbered and titled in the plate; unsigned as issued. $1,500.
"Indeed, in publishing his Caprichos in 1799, Goya appears to have involved himself in a commercial undertaking perhaps unique in the life of any artist-engraver past or present. Apparently carried away with enthusiasm for the art of engraving, he acquired more than eighty costly copperplates which he etched and aquatinted and from which he then printed some three hundred sets, making a total of about twenty-four thousand impressions. These he advertised in the Madrid daily newspapers, as being for sale in a perfume and liqueur shop in the Calle del Desengao N° 1 above which he had lived and was probably still living at the time. The subjects were satirical, the compositions were unconventional, the technique was novel, and it is not surprising that his enterprise, unsponsored and purely private, should have met with failure in the Madrid of his day. In the course of four years he only succeeded in selling twenty-seven sets of engravings" (Harris I, p. 7).
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