Lo merecia. (He deserved it.)

Inscriptions

Inscribed, in plate, lower center: Lo merecia.; inscribed, in plate, upper left: 29; inscribed, in graphite, upper right: 29 Watermark: HGO/Palmette

Label

Goya’s series chronicled both the abuses of the French soldiers and the Spanish resistance to the war. In these three prints, the artist records moments of opposition by civilians, returning agency and action to the conquered people. While one older woman in Plate 9 prepares to surprise a soldier with her bared knife, other Spaniards enact their revenge on the dead bodies of the invaders. Dragged, kicked, and stabbed, the fallen foreigners become a focus for local anger and desperation. With their faces impassive or seemingly hollowed out by the ongoing horrors of the conflict, the avenging Spaniards in these images appear to derive little satisfaction from their vengeance. The grim sensibility is heightened by the dark tones of the prints. 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

FILM 47, From The Fall of the Wall to 9-11: Understanding the New World Disorder, Mark Williams, James Nachtwey, Spring 2013

SPAN 31, Introduction to Hispanic Studies II: 18th and 19th Centuries, Jose del Pino, Winter 2014

SPAN 31, Introduction to Hispanic Studies II: 18th and 19th Centuries, Txetxu Aguado, Winter 2014

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 2023

Facilitated Experience: Special Tour - From Goya to Photojournalism, Summer 2023

Exhibition History

A Gift to the College: The Mr. and Mrs. Adolph Weil Jr. Collection of Master Prints, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 17-December 20, 1998.

An Introduction of the History of Art from the Fifteenth Century to the Twentieth Century, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Art 2, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hamsphire, February 12-March 15, 1992.

Art and/as Violence, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Art History 2, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 12, 2006-March 11, 2007.

Fatal Consequences: Callot, Goya, and the Horrors of Wars, 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.98, no. 130.

Hilliard T. Goldfarb and Reva Wolf, Fatal Consequences: Callot, Goya, and the Horrors of War, Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 1990, p. 64, ill. XII.

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 148; Harris 149

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