Portrait of Francisco Goya, from "The Portfolio"

Portrait of Francisco Goya, from "The Portfolio"

Louis Lucas

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Based on a portrait by López from 1826, now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, this etching accompanied a three-part article on Goya in the art periodical "The Portfolio," in 1879. The publication and its editor, Philip Gilbert Hamerton, actively promoted printmaking, especially etching, and commissioned this full-page plate from Lucas expressly for the issue. The article by Hamerton was not sympathetic to the visionary Spanish painter decrying that he was a "monster of immorality, impudence, and ingratitude". Goya's reputation in Britain in the nineteenth century lagged behind that in Continental Europe.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Portrait of Francisco Goya, from "The Portfolio"Portrait of Francisco Goya, from "The Portfolio"Portrait of Francisco Goya, from "The Portfolio"Portrait of Francisco Goya, from "The Portfolio"Portrait of Francisco Goya, from "The Portfolio"

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.