'Poor Folly' from the 'Disparates' (Follies / Irrationalities)

Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A two-headed woman runs into a building, possibly a church, her breasts bare and arms outstretched. She stands at the threshold, turning one head to look at two men behind her, one of whom seems to scream, his hair blown by the wind. A figure with two faces was a popular motif in Spain in the years following the Peninsular Wars; here, it could refer to the country facing both the tumultuous recent past and an uncertain, dismal future. That the country ought to look backward and forward at the same time would also be the implication of the proverb traditionally associated with this print, "Two heads are better than one." From the posthumous first edition published by the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid in 1864 under the title 'Los Proverbios'.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art