Description
In The Disasters of War Title Page, This printed title page belongs to the first published edition of Francisco Goya’s The Disasters of War. Its formal lettering presents a series whose images confront violence, famine and the failures of human sympathy. Rather than depicting one of those scenes, the page gives the collection a public printed identity, marking the passage from privately made plates to a work encountered by a wider audience.
Issued in 1863 by Madrid’s Royal Academy of San Fernando, the publication appeared decades after Goya’s death. The Metropolitan Museum’s source record groups the title page with two pages of letterpress description, preserving part of that original presentation. This typographic work is therefore an object from the series’ publication history. Its restrained appearance stands in striking contrast to the harrowing images it introduces, making the act of naming and publishing them part of their continuing significance.
Read our guide to giclée prints or browse the Goya collection.
