The women use force; The women give courage (Las mugeres dan valor), number 4 of 80; from the series The Disasters of War (Los Desastres de la Guerra)

Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes, Spanish, 1746 - 1828

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1810-1820

Etching, aquatint, scraping and burnishing on paper

First edition, made prior to all corrections

Plate: 6 1/8 × 8 3/16 in. (15.6 × 20.8 cm)

Sheet: 9 3/4 × 12 7/8 in. (24.7 × 32.7 cm)

Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Gift of Adolph Weil Jr., Class of 1935

PR.991.50.1.4

Publisher

Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, Madrid, Spain

Geography

Place Made: Spain, Europe

Period

19th century

Object Name

Print

Research Area

Print

Not on view

Inscriptions

Inscribed, in plate, lower center: Las mugeres dan valor; inscribed, in plate, upper left: 4; inscribed, in graphite, upper right: 4 Watermark: HGO/Palmette

Label

In the face of French brutality, the Spanish mounted their opposition. In these two prints, bodies of men and women clash in the center, bringing together civilians and soldiers in a physical struggle. In each, Spanish women take up arms, stabbing at French soldiers, who attempt to raise their own swords. Such acts of defiance were rarely recorded in the written record; yet these images memorialize the women’s bravery. Goya’s extensive use of aquatint, an artistic technique that creates tonal areas through application of powered resin to the printing plate, creates a dark background. The shadowy setting contrasts with the women’s white bodies, which draws attention to their resistance to the French men.

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

A Space for Dialogue 34, Images of War, Christina Duncan Evans, Class of 1954 Intern, Main Lobby, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 24-December 3, 2006.

Fatal Consequences: Callot, Goya, and the Horrors of War, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 8-December 9, 1990.

Recording War: Images of Violence, 1500-1900, Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, May 20-August 20, 2023.

Publication History

Timothy Rub, Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann, Kelly Pask, "A Gift to the College: The Mr. and Mrs. Adolph Weil Jr. Collection of Master Prints", Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 1998, listed, p.95, no. 105.

Hilliard T. Goldfarb and Reva Wolf, Fatal Consequences: Callot, Goya, and the Horrors of War, Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 1990.

Christina Duncan Evans, A Space for Dialogue 34, Image of War, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2006, ill. p. 1

Catalogue Raisonne

Delteil 123; Harris 124

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