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Created with black ink and gray washes on cream-white paper, this drawing shows a person with a pig’s face sitting astride the shoulders of a person with goat’s legs, both looking at a book held open by two people wearing robes and tall, conical hats. The creature with goat's legs sits on the floor, legs stretched in front of it. It grips the ankles of the pig-headed person, who looks at the book with with palms raised to shoulder height and facing out. The robed people hold the book open with long pincers and look at the pair of imaginary creatures with their eyes and mouths wide open. On the cloth draping over the table, three faces are drawn side-by-side, also with wide-open eyes and mouths. A skull rests on the floor near the lower left corner. The title is written in the center of the margin of the white paper under the image, “Brujas,” and to the right, in brown ink, “à bolar.”

Francisco Goya

Brujas à volar (Witches Preparing to Fly) [verso], 1796/1797

Not on View

Medium

brush and black ink and gray wash on laid paper

Dimensions

sheet: 23.7 × 15 cm (9 5/16 × 5 7/8 in.)

Credit Line

Woodner Collection

Accession Number

1991.182.10.b

Artists / Makers

Francisco Goya (artist) Spanish, 1746 - 1828

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Inscription

lower center in brush and gray ink: Brujas; by later hand, lower right in pen and brown ink: à bolar; upper left in brush and gray ink: 56; by Javier Goya (?), upper right in pen and brown ink: 9.; upper center verso in brush and gray ink: mascaras / 55; by later hand, upper center verso in pen and brown ink: crueles; by Javier Goya (?), upper right verso in pen and brown ink: 10

Provenance

Javier Goya y Bayeu (1828);Mariano Goya y Goicoechea (1854); Federico de Madrazo and/or Román Garreta y Huerta (c. 1855-1860); Paul Lebas (sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 3 April 1877, no. 72); purchased by Baron Etienne Martin de Beurnonville (sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 16-19 February 1885, no. 51, to Philippe); private collection, Paris; Alfred Strölin, Lausanne, by September 1933; purchased by Ian Woodner, New York, 21 July 1983; by inheritance to his daughters, Andrea and Dian Woodner, New York, 1990; gift to NGA, 1991.

Associated Names

Beurnonville, Etienne Martin de, Baron
Woodner and Ms. Andrea Woodner, Dian, Ms.
Woodner, Ian

Exhibition History

1982: Goya dans les collections Suisse, Fondation Pierre Gianalda, Martigny, 1982. nos. 13 (recto) and 14 (verso), repro.

1986: Goya: The Condesa de Chinchón and Other Paintings, Drawings, and Prints from Spanish amd American Private Collections and the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1986-87, (recto only) (unpaginated brochure).

1987: Master Drawings: The Woodner Collection, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1987, no. 106, repro.

1988: Goya and the Spirit of Enlightenment, Museo del Prado, Madrid, 1988, no. 59 (verso only), repro.

1990: Master Drawings from the Woodner Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1990, no. 140, repro.

1992: Dürer to Diebenkorn: Recent Acquisitions of Art on Paper, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1992, no. 45 (recto only).

1992: Goya. La Década de Los Caprichos: Dibujos y aquafuertes, Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid, 1992, no. 59 (verso only).

1995: The Touch of the Artist: Master Drawings from the Woodner Collections, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1995-1996, no. 98.

1999: El Libro de los Caprichos: Francisco de Goya, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, 1999, no. 70 (verso only), repro.

2001: Goya, Drawings from His Private Albums, Hayward Gallery, London, 2001, no. 20, repro.

2002: Goya: Images of Women, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2002, no. 78.

2006: Master Drawings from the Woodner Collections, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2006 - 2007.

2017: The Woodner Collections: Master Drawings from Seven Centuries, NGA, 2017.

2021: Aquatint: From Its Origins to Goya, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2021 - 2022.

Bibliography

2021: Hoisington, Rena. Aquatint: From Its Origins to Goya. Washington, 2021: 212, fig. 3.