Etching, drypoint and aquatint, circa 1824-28. 190x120 mm; 7 3/4x4 3/4 inches, full margins. Third state (of 4). Printed at the Calcografía, Madrid, for John Savile Lumley in 1859. A superb, richly-inked and early impression on heavy laid paper, with the strong drypoint extending the mantilla to the right of the woman's face and along the left side of her body, and with no sign of wear.
Proofs of this subject, including those printed for Lumley, are exceedingly scarce and there are only several other known impressions in public collections prior to the Lumley printings.
This is among a small group of six etchings made by Goya (1746-1828) at the end of his career in Bordeaux, where he had gone in 1824 and where ultimately he died, following his disillusionment and dissatisfaction with political developments in Spain and the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy at the end of the Peninsular War. Delteil 29; Harris 31.
