Duro es el paso! ('It's a hard step!') (D. 133; H. 134)

Details

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes
Duro es el paso! ('It's a hard step!') (D. 133; H. 134)
etching with drypoint and engraving, Harris's state I i, an exceptionally rare working proof before letters and numbers (Harris records one other example, with the same watermark, in the Museum of Modern Art, New York), a fine impression, on laid paper, watermarked SERRA, with wide margins, the number 17 in pen and ink in the upper right corner, the artist's name and a price (5/-) in pencil in the lower margin, a vertical crease in the right margin (outside the platemark), a further soft crease across the tip of the upper right corner, minor soft creasing elsewhere, a short break in the paper surface in the left margin, scattered foxing and staining, remains of old adhesive on the reverse at the upper sheet edge where previously mounted, and lesser defects
P. 143 x 167 mm., S. 220 x 330 mm.

Special notice

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Lot Essay

Here we see Goya portraying a scene without details that would allow us to identify precisely the protagonists involved - those about to be hung might well be Spaniards accused of collaborating, or they might be Frenchmen. The figure of the friar, with his grotesque face exhorting the others, makes clear Goya's attitude towards the clergy. It is also a prime example of the mordant humour that informs the short, pithy titles attached to each image.
The foul-biting between the top two rungs of the ladder is the result of the plate having been used previously. A war-time shortage of copper forced Goya to cut up a large plate upon which he had etched Landscape with a Great Rock and a Waterfall (H. 24), and to use the reverse of one half for this composition.

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