Goya's Last Caprice

ununmbered plate from Goya's Disasters of War

Goya's handwritten draft title of the volume now known as Disasters of War was Fatal consequences of Spain's bloody war with Bonaparte, and other emphatic caprices (Spanish: Fatales consequencias de la sangrienta guerra en España con Buonaparte, Y otros caprichos enfáticos). Amongst three unnumbered etchings gathered at the end of the sequence is the one above, usually labelled 'Proud Monster' or 'Fierce Monster', and usually placed first of the three, followed by the two concerning Truth. One of the 'emphatic caprices', all of which are connected by some element of allegory, there is a double ambiguity here, both in the nature of the creature itself (which finds a curious echo in the Montauk Monster), and in the direction of the bodies of humans in its maw - are they being devoured or disgorged?