Cruel lastima! (Cruel, pitiful sight!; Cruel, pitiful story!)
Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes, Spanish, 1746 - 1828
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
Portfolio / Series Title
Number 48 of 80 from Los Desastres de la Guerra (The Disasters of War)
Publisher
Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, Madrid, Spain
Geography
Place Made: Spain, Europe
Period
19th century
Object Name
Research Area
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 2023
Spanish 31.01, Introduction to Hispanic Literature II, Sebastian Diaz, Winter 2024
Spanish 31.02, Introduction to Hispanic Literature II, Sebastian Diaz, Winter 2024
Facilitated Experience: Special Tour - From Goya to Photojournalism, Summer 2023
Spanish 31.01, Introduction to Spanish Literature II, Sebastian Diaz, Summer 2024
Spanish 31.01, Introduction to Spanish Literature II, Sebastian Diaz, 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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