The sleep of reason produces monsters (No. 43) (original) (raw)

Series Title:Los Caprichos

Date: 1799

Medium: Etching with aquatint and other intaglio media

Dimensions:

Plate: 7 7/16 x 5 7/8 inches (18.89 x 14.92 cm)

Mat: 21 1/4 x 16 inches (53.98 x 40.64 cm)

Credit Line: Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number: 33-1077

Edition/Proof: 1st ed.

Exhibition History

Goya: Paintings, Prints and Drawings, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, January 16-March 1, 1953.

Graphic Masterworks from the Permanent Collection, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, May 23-July 25, 1993.

Inked in Time: Six Centuries of Printed Masterpieces, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, February 22-May 31, 1998, no cat.

Dürer to Tiepolo: Works on Paper, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, April 3-October 7, 2007, no cat., as The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, from Los Caprichos.

Goya/Chagoya, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, August 4, 2012-February 3, 2013, no cat., as The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (No. 43, El sueño de la razón produce monstruos).

Dürer to Tiepolo: Works on Paper, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, December 12, 2012-June 9, 2013, no cat., as The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (No. 43, El sueño de la razón produce monstruos).

Gallery Label In Goya’s print, the artist portrays himself asleep at his drawing table. His subconscious conjures up a world of diabolic nocturnal animals that symbolize superstitious thoughts and fears. Goya felt it was his duty to wipe away society’s “harmful vulgar beliefs” by rendering the truth in his art.

Provenance

With Alden Galleries, Kansas City, MO, October 25, 1933;

Purchased from Alden Galleries by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1933.

Published References

Goya: Paintings, Prints and Drawings, exh. cat. (Richmond, VA: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 1953).

George Levitine, “Some Emblematic Sources of Goya,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 22 (1959): 114-31.

Folke Nordström, Goya, Saturn and Melancholy (Stockholm: Almqvist och Wiksell, 1962), 116-32.

Tomás Harris, Goya Engravings and Lithographs (Oxford: Bruno Cassirer, 1964), 1: no. 78, pp. 100-02, 113, (repro.), as El sueño de la razon produce monstruos. (The sleep of reason produces monsters); 2: no. 78, pp. 115-16, (repro.), as El sueño de la razon produce monstruos. (The sleep of reason produces monsters.).

Philip Hofer, ed., Los Caprichos (New York: Dover, 1969), 2.

Pierre Gassier and Juliet Wilson-Bareau, The Life and Complete Work of Francisco Goya, 2nd ed.(New York: Harrison House, 1981), no. 536, pp. 125-26, 130, 163, 181, (repro.), as El sueño de la razon produce monstruos (The dream of reason brings forth monsters).

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 197, (repro.), as The Sleep of Reason Gives Birth to Monsters, from Los Caprichos.

Alfonso E. Pérez-Sánchez and Julián Gállego, Goya: The Complete Etchings and Lithographs (Munich: Prestel, 1995), no. 43, p. 58, (repro.), as The sleep of reason produces monsters.

George L. McKenna, Prints, 1460-1995 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 134, 137, 314, (repro.), as Caprices (Los Caprichos).

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 108, (repro.), as The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (Pl. 43), from Los Caprichos.