Plate 45 from "Los Caprichos": There is Plenty to Suck (Mucho hay que chupar)

Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The figures in this print have been identified as witches or furies, although the caption suggests that they are vampires. Two take snuff from a box; the third figure and two large bats peer from the background. In the foreground is a basket full of dead babies. This plate is one of several in which Goya’s depiction of witches, goblins, and other such creatures alludes to superstitions and fallacies embraced by the uneducated—a susceptibility derided by intellectuals of the time. The use of snuff in Goya’s depiction indicates that his vampires have just eaten, because it was often taken after meals to aid digestion.

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