Plate 8 from "Los Caprichos": They carried her off! (Que se la llevaron!)

Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes) Spanish

Not on view

The woman has sometimes been interpreted as a victim of rape, an antecedent to similar violations depicted in The Disasters of War. Her head is thrown back and she might be crying out. The scene is complicated by the fact that the woman appears to be embracing one of the men carrying her, an ambiguity typical of Goya’s work. Both figures are cloaked in the manner of monks. Are they perpetrators of the crime? The nocturnal setting and the brilliant unetched parts of the sheet heighten the drama.

Plate 8 from "Los Caprichos": They carried her off! (Que se la llevaron!), Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes) (Spanish, Fuendetodos 1746–1828 Bordeaux), Etching, burnished aquatint

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