3-101-561 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Así sucedió, (This is how it happened), Plate 47, "Los Desastres de la Guerra", c1810, (published 1863). French soldiers leave a church or monastery with stolen objects of value: the image of the Virgin Mary, a processional cross and four candlesticks. The thieves leave behind them an injured monk, doubled over in pain, risking his life to defend the sacred objects. The scene is an indictment of acts of brutal violence that were carried out on the members of some religious orders in times of war. 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].