3-101-576 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Extraña devocion!, (Strange devotion!), Plate 66, "Los Desastres de la Guerra", c1810, (published 1863). A donkey carries on its back a glass case containing the mummified body of a saint, possibly the Blessed Mariana de Jesús. The faithful prostrate themselves, bowing their heads. The donkey to which all this respect is being paid for being the bearer of something sacred is an animal usually associated with ignorance, thus we may take this print as a criticism of the superstition of the people. Although Goya did not make known his intention when creating the plates (between 1810 and 1815), art historians see them as a visual protest against the violence of the 1808 Dos de Mayo Uprising, the subsequent cruel war that ended in Spanish victory in the Peninsular War of 1808-1814, and the setbacks to the liberal cause following the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1814. The prints were not published until 35 years after Goya's death, probably because only then was it considered politically safe to do so. From "Los Desastres de la Guerra: colección de ochenta láminas inventadas y grabadas al agua fuerte por Don Francisco de Goya", (The Disasters of War: collection of eighty plates made and etched by Don Francisco de Goya), [Madrid, 1863].