FRANCISCO DE GOYA Y LUCIENTES (Zaragoza, 1746 - Bordeaux, 1828).
Folder with 15 etchings on paper, based on paintings by DIEGO VELÃZQUEZ (Seville, 1599 - Madrid, 1660).
Published by the Calcografía Nacional. Madrid. For the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts.
It has wrinkles, folds, slight stains.
Measurements: 65 x 44 cm. c.u.
Between 1777 and 1778, in response to the concern of several illustrious artists about the lack of engravers to reproduce the collections of the Royal Palaces, Goya offered to engrave plates in which he copied some of the most emblematic paintings by Velázquez belonging to these collections. This allowed him to study Velázquez's painting, which would influence him so much, as well as to learn etching independently, an engraving technique that allowed him enormous freedom from the academic sweet engraving, and which would form the basis for the rest of his series of prints: Caprichos, Desastres de la guerra (Disasters of War), Tauromaquia and Disparates. The copper plate is in the Calcografía Nacional (R. 3594) and the preparatory black pencil drawing in the Fundación Lázaro Galdiano (Inv. 10623), both in Madrid.
On 28 July 1778 the sale was announced in the Gaceta de Madrid of: "Nine prints drawn and engraved with strong water by Don Francisco de Goya Pintor; whose originals of the size of the natural painted by Don Diego Velázquez exist in the Collection of the Royal Palace of this Court. They depict the figure of the kings Philip III and Philip IV, and of the Queens Margarita of Austria and Isabel of Bourbon, and that of Don Gaspar de Guzman Count Duke of Olivares, the standing figures of Menipo and Aesop and of the seated dwarfs. They are sold in the bookshop of Don Antonio Sancha in the old Aduana, and in that of Don Manuel Barco, Carrera de San Gerónimo. Their prices are, the equestrian figures at 6 reales and the others at 3; and they will be sold together and separately".