Cruel, pitiful sight!; Cruel, pitiful story! (Cruel lastima!), number 48 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, drypoint, lavis, scraping and burnishing on paper

First edition, made prior to all corrections

Plate: 6 × 8 1/16 in. (15.2 × 20.5 cm)

Sheet: 9 11/16 × 12 13/16 in. (24.6 × 32.6 cm)

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

PR.991.50.1.48

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: Cruel lastima!; inscribed, in plate, lower left (faintly): 47; upper left: 48; inscribed, in graphite, upper right: 48 Watermark: HGO/Palmette

Label

In this group of prints, Goya charts not only the destruction of war, but also its effect on the conquered population. Before mangled bodies, witnesses must make sense of the horror inflicted on their country. In depicting such terrible imagery in graphic detail, the artist forces viewers of the prints to share in looking upon monumental inhumanity. While the Spanish villagers cover their faces in anguish or disgust, the reaction of the French soldiers, in contrast, often remain impassive. In Plate 36, one of Goya’s best known images from Disasters of War, a French soldier is almost amused as he looks at the hanging body of a Spanish man who has been stripped of much of his clothing. The opposing reactions of the French soldiers and Spanish civilians calls attention to the plight of the survivors.

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

Spanish 31.01, Introduction to Hispanic Literature II, Sebastian Diaz, Winter 2023

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

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.99, no. 149.

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

Provenance

Date unknown, in the collection of Felix Somary (1881-1956), Vienna and Zurich; sold Sotheby's, New York, May 3, 1978, lot 2; purchased by Adolph Weil, Jr., Montgomery, Alabama; 1991 given to Dartmouth College by Adolph Weil, Jr., Class of 1935.

Catalogue Raisonne

Delteil 167; Harris 168

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