Plate 40 from ‘Los Caprichos’: Of what ill will he die? (De que mal morira?)

Description

In Of what ill will he die?, a donkey attends a sick person, transforming the respectable role of medical adviser into an absurd animal performance. Francisco Goya’s Of What Ill Will He Die? makes the patient’s dependence especially troubling through the doubtful competence of the figure in charge. The title shifts attention from diagnosis toward the possibility that the treatment itself is dangerous.

Plate 40 of Los Caprichos, published in 1799, uses etching and burnished aquatint to make the improbable consultation convincing in its gestures and arrangement. Goya’s satire concerns authority that possesses the outward signs of expertise without its substance. The joke remains uneasy because another person’s health is at stake. Its sharpness lies in that combination of ridiculous appearance and real dependency, where misplaced trust gives ignorance the opportunity to do harm.

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