Plate 12 from "Los Caprichos": Out hunting for teeth (A caza de dientes)

Plate 12 from "Los Caprichos": Out hunting for teeth (A caza de dientes)

Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is plate number 12 from the series of Goya's 80 aquatint etchings published as Los Caprichos in 1799. Here a young woman pulls the teeth from a hanged man because of their value in sorcery. She stands on tip-toes and covers her face in fear. Goya uses the aquatint and contrasting white ground of the paper to great effect in creating dramatic nocturnal effects. Goya treated the subject of superstition and witchcraft in a number of prints in the series. A manuscript dating to around 1799-1803, provides explanations for each plate. The explanation for this plate reads 'The teeth of a hanged man are very efficacious for sorceries; without this ingredient there is not much you can do. What a pity the common people should believe such nonsense.' The basis for many of the prints in the Caprichos can be found in an album of drawings Goya made in Madrid around 1796-98 that is now broken up (known as Album B) sixteen of which are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Plate 12 from "Los Caprichos": Out hunting for teeth (A caza de dientes)Plate 12 from "Los Caprichos": Out hunting for teeth (A caza de dientes)Plate 12 from "Los Caprichos": Out hunting for teeth (A caza de dientes)Plate 12 from "Los Caprichos": Out hunting for teeth (A caza de dientes)Plate 12 from "Los Caprichos": Out hunting for teeth (A caza de dientes)

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.