Plate 62 from ‘Los Caprichos’: Who would have thought it? (Quien lo creyera!)

Description

In Who would have thought it?, fantastic figures struggle and fall amid threatening creatures, turning a close encounter into a scene of uncontrolled descent. Francisco Goya’s Who Would Have Thought It? gives the turmoil a caption of astonishment. The title suggests an unexpected turn, while the tangled activity makes it difficult to isolate a single stable point of control.

Plate 62 of Los Caprichos, published in 1799, uses etching and burnished aquatint to make the grotesque encounter dark and substantial. Goya’s fantasy does not require a clear narrative explanation to convey the loss of balance. Bodies, creatures and movement create their own unsettling logic. The image’s force lies in that instability, where the apparent intimacy of the participants offers no protection against a sudden reversal and surprise becomes another expression of human vulnerability.

Read our guide to giclée prints or browse the Goya collection.