Plate 53 from "Los Caprichos": What a golden beak! (Que pico de Oro!)

1799
Not on view
This print has been variously interpreted as a satire on the empty rhetoric of many public speakers and as an attack on sensationalist preachers and their gullible audiences. A parrot perches on a pulpit surrounded by an audience of gaping figures, all with the tonsured heads of clergymen except for the listener at center, who wears a bicorne hat and a look of disapproval.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Plate 53 from "Los Caprichos": What a golden beak! (Que pico de Oro!)
  • Series/Portfolio: Los Caprichos
  • Artist: Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes) (Spanish, Fuendetodos 1746–1828 Bordeaux)
  • Date: 1799
  • Medium: Etching, burnished aquatint, burin
  • Dimensions: Plate: 8 7/16 x 5 7/8 in. (21.4 x 15 cm)
    Sheet: 11 9/16 × 8 3/16 in. (29.4 × 20.8 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: Gift of M. Knoedler & Co., 1918
  • Object Number: 18.64(53)
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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