Plate 39 from ‘Los Caprichos’: And so was his grandfather. (Asta su Abuelo.)

Description

In And so was his grandfather, a donkey studies a record of its ancestry, surrounded by the solemn apparatus of pedigree and inherited distinction. In And So Was His Grandfather, Francisco Goya gives the pursuit of noble lineage an absurdly literal form. The creature’s seriousness is essential to the joke: it appears fully invested in the dignity of its own family history.

Plate 39 of Los Caprichos, published in 1799, uses aquatint to lend substance and gravity to an impossible social performance. Goya’s satire concerns the substitution of ancestry for merit, allowing the animal likeness to puncture a claim to superiority. The contrast between a learned-looking activity and its ridiculous participant remains sharply legible. Its humor asks what an impressive genealogy can actually prove when the individual consulting it has nothing else to recommend.

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