Description
In What a sacrifice!, a young woman is presented beside an older man, while the surrounding company gives their meeting the character of an arranged transaction. Francisco Goya’s What a Sacrifice! places the emotional cost of such an encounter beneath a caption that can be read with bitter irony. The figures’ contrasting appearance makes the inequality difficult to overlook.
Published in 1799 as plate 14 of Los Caprichos, the etching and burnished aquatint examine the pressures surrounding marriage and social advantage. Goya allows the gathering’s apparent respectability to coexist with an unsettling lack of sympathy. The title points toward what the young woman may be expected to surrender. The image’s force comes from that mismatch between a public arrangement and private feeling, where a supposedly desirable union takes on the shape of a bargain.
Read our guide to giclée prints or browse the Goya collection.
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