Print scholarship

Under the instruction of his first teacher José Luzán, Goya learnt the principles of drawing by making copies of prints.⁴ Printmaking was gaining popularity in Madrid in the 1770s which led to it being introduced as an area of study at the Royal Academy.⁵ Goya developed an interest in the prints being published by Spanish contemporaries such as Juan de la Cruz Cano and had access to the impressive personal collection of his friend Juan Agustín Ceán Bermúdez, which included works by contemporary artists and old masters such as Rembrandt.⁶

An 1812 inventory of his possessions indicates Goya had amassed a print collection that included works by Piranesi and Rembrandt.⁷ While Rembrandt’s prints may have inspired several of the Los Caprichos compositions and instructed him on technique, the satirical prints of William Hogarth and James Gillray possibly inspired his observations of human nature so acerbically captured in Los Caprichos.⁸