Bullfight in a divided ring, from the 'Bulls of Bordeaux'

Bullfight in a divided ring, from the 'Bulls of Bordeaux'

Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is one of four lithographs of bullfighting Goya executed in Bordeaux that demonstrate his mastery of lithography. Goya’s biographer Laurent Matheron provided an account of the artist’s approach to the medium. Goya’s use of a magnifying glass to execute the prints—not to accomplish "detailed work" but, rather, owing to his failing eyesight—accounts for their intricate visual texture, with varying intensities of crayon combining with minute subtractive scraping. Goya would set the lithographic stone on an easel and work from dark to light, first covering the entire surface "with a uniform gray tone" and then scraping the highlights.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bullfight in a divided ring, from the 'Bulls of Bordeaux'Bullfight in a divided ring, from the 'Bulls of Bordeaux'Bullfight in a divided ring, from the 'Bulls of Bordeaux'Bullfight in a divided ring, from the 'Bulls of Bordeaux'Bullfight in a divided ring, from the 'Bulls of Bordeaux'

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.