FRANCISCO JOSE de GOYA y LUCIENTES
Fuendetodos 1746 - 1828 Bordeaux
Tal para qual (1st edition), 1799
Two of a Kind
Etching, aquatint and drypoint on laid paper
200 x 150 mm.; 7 7/8 x 5 7/8 inches
Reference:
Caprichos, plate 5
Delteil 42
Harris 40.III.1
Notes:
1. A very fine impression on laid paper from the 1st edition of 1799.
2. The Prado text explanation for this work is as follows:
Muchas veces se ha disputado si los hombres son peores que las mujeres o lo contrario. Los vicios de unos y otros vienen de la mala education donde quiera que los hombres sean perversos las mujeres lo seran tambien. Tan buena cabeza tiene la señorita que se representa en esta estampa como el pisaverde que le está dando conversacion, y en cuanto á las dos viejas tan infame as la una como la otra.
(Many times it has been disputed whether men are worse than women or the opposite. In any case, the vices, in both cases, come from a bad upbringing in which men are supposed to be perverse and women also. The woman represented in this work has as knowing a head as that of the young man who is seen conversing. Insofar as the two old women are concerned, each one is as evil-appearing as the other).
3. The other texts on this work invariably give it a "political" explanation. The Juan March Foundation’s text, for example, refers to Queen Maria-Luisa and her lover Manuel Godoy and calls the meeting depicted as clearly that of two adulterers and notes that the two women in the background, pretending to pray, underline "the vicious aspect of this rendez-vous". The Ayala manuscript of about 1799-1803 simply calls the subject of this etching: Maria-Luisa y Godoy, thus referring to Queen Maria-Luisa and her lover Manuel Godoy. At this time, Godoy was really governing Spain at the same time that King Carlos IV spent most of his time hunting and eating. In this respect, see Goya’s painting King Carlos IV in Hunting Costume, 1799, in the Patrimonio Nacional, Palacio Real, Madrid.