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For heaven’s sake: and it was her mother (Dios la perdonne: y era su madre)

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes

Artwork Details

For heaven’s sake: and it was her mother (Dios la perdonne: y era su madre)
1799
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes
etching, aquatint and drypoint on paper
12 x 8 in. (30.48 x 20.32 cm);6 13/16 x 4 7/8 in. (17.3 x 12.38 cm);7 3/4 x 5 7/8 in. (19.68 x 14.92 cm);19 x 14 in. (48.26 x 35.56 cm)
Gift of Kurt Delbanco in honor of Nicholas Delbanco, and partial purchase with the funds from the W. Hawkins Ferry Fund
2008/1.152.16

Description

Plate 16
For heaven’s sake: and it was her mother.
(Dios la perdonne: y era su madre.)
Etching, aquatint, and drypoint
Gift of Kurt Delbanco in honor of Nicholas Delbanco, and partial purchase with funds from the W. Hawkins Ferry Fund, 2008/1.152.16
Commentary: The young woman left her home as a little girl. She did her apprenticeship at Cadiz, she came to Madrid: there she “won the lottery.” She goes down to the Prado, and hears a grimy, decrepit old woman begging her for alms; she sends her away, but the old woman persists. The fashionable young woman turns around and finds—who would have thought it—that the poor old woman is her mother.

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