DescriptionEvoking that uneasiness that wells up in us at the first thought of some unfathomable power, Goya's "Giant" is staggering. This rarity ranks with works by Dürer and Rembrandt as one of the most impressive images ever printed from a copperplate.

 

 

Like a mezzotint engraver, Goya proceeded to scrape highlights into metal previously roughened with grainy aquatint. Thus he sculpted this gargantuan colossus—Prometheus, Zeus, god of war—or what you will, out of darkness. Everything that held Goya in awe seems to have been compacted into this mysterious, ominous being.

ProvenanceGeorges Prévôt

Catalogue RaisonneHarris 29.I ; Delteil 35 MMA 1995, fig.15. p.71