Goya etching. 'Que viene el coco' (Here comes the bogeyman). Plate 3 from The Caprices. 5th edition (1881-1886)

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Francisco de Goya y Lucientes. 'Que viene el coco' (Here comes the bogeyman). Plate 3 from Los Caprichos. 5th edition … Read more Francisco de Goya y Lucientes. 'Que viene el coco' (Here comes the bogeyman). Plate 3 from Los Caprichos. 5th edition (1881-1886)

This fifth edition of Los Caprichos was printed between 1881 and 1886 in the Calcografía de la Real Academia, stamped in etching and aquatint and with drypoint, in soft sepia ink. The plates were beveled and the binding was done at the top of the prints. The edition consists of 210 copies. Very clean and correct tinted stamping; aquatint allows shadows to be nuanced by creating grayscale gradation and dramatic, haunting lighting. The strong paper used does not have a water mark as usual as Harris catalogs it. The original folder in which the complete collection was presented was made of cream cardboard with the portrait of Goya stamped on the cover and the Title: “Fran.co Goya y Lucientes Pintor”.

'Que viene el coco' (Plate 3) is part of The Caprichos. The etching shows a hooded, spectral figure looming over a frightened mother and her two young children, one of whom throws up his arms in terror while the other clings to her skirts. Contemporary commentary on the print identifies it as a critique of a common and, in Goya's eyes, disastrous method of early education: frightening children into obedience with the invented threat of the 'coco,' or bogeyman, rather than reasoning with them. The Enlightenment cleric Fray Benito Jerónimo Feijóo had already warned that such superstitions left ordinary people vulnerable to real criminals who disguised themselves as supernatural beings to commit theft and worse, and Goya's image carries the same Enlightenment plea for raising children free of fear and superstition.

Plate size: 15x21,5 cm.
Paper size: 26x36,5 cm.
It has rust stains that can be seen in the image.

Los caprichos (The Caprices) is a set of 80 prints in aquatint and etching created by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya in 1797-1798, and published as an album in 1799 (first edition). The prints were an artistic experiment: a medium for Goya's condemnation of the universal follies and foolishness in the Spanish society in which he lived.
Thirteen official editions are known: that of 1799, five in the 19th century, and seven in the 20th century. Being the last one in 1970 carried out by the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando. See less