He Deserved It (Lo merecia), plate number 29; from the series The Disasters of War (Los Desastres de la Guerra)
Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes, Spanish, 1746 - 1828
1810
Etching, drypoint, burin and burnisher on wove paper
Plate: 6 7/8 × 8 7/16 in. (17.5 × 21.5 cm)
Sheet: 9 3/4 × 13 5/8 in. (24.7 × 34.6 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Fletcher H. McDowell, Class of 1945
PR.969.51
Geography
Place Made: Spain, Europe
Period
19th century
Object Name
Research Area
Not on view
Label
Goya's series chronicled both the abuses of the French soldiers and the Spanish resistance to the war. In these two prints, the artist records moments of opposition by civilians, who enact their revenge on the dead bodies of the invaders. In Plate 28, a man and woman beat and stab at the bound body of a soldier. Meanwhile, in Plate 29, two men drag the corpse of a French fighter. Both dead foreigners’ heads are obscured, even as their bodies become a focus for local anger and desperation. With their faces impassive or seemingly hollowed out by the ongoing horrors of the conflict, the Spanish fighters in these images appear to derive little satisfaction from their vengeance, which cannot undo the immense destruction they have experienced. One of Goya’s titles suggests sympathy with the civilians, proclaiming: He deserved it.
From the 2023 exhibition Recording War: Images of Violence 1500 – 1900, curated by Elizabeth Rice Mattison, Andrew W. Mellon Associate Curator of Academic Programming
Course History
Anthropology 3.01, Introduction to Anthropology, Charis Ford Morrison Boke 1, Summer 2023
Studio Art 27.01/28.01/74.01, Printmaking I/II/III, Josh Dannin, Summer 2024
Exhibition History
19th Century Prints from the Permanent Collection, Art 52, Lower Jewett Corridor, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 12-March 25, 1979.
Recording War: Images of Violence, 1500-1900, Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, August 23-December 9, 2023.
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