3-101-563 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Caridad de una muger [ie mujer], (A woman's charity), Plate 49, "Los Desastres de la Guerra", c1810, (published 1863). A woman in a shawl offers a plate to a group of figures lying on the ground, exhausted by hunger, possibly dying. On the right, an obese priest observes with indifference. This scene reflects the famine that ravaged the population during the War of Independence, especially between 1811 and 1812. It also depicts the lack of solidarity of the wealthier classes, especially the Church, on the one hand, and on the other, the spontaneous help offered by those who did not have much to spare. 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. 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].