3-101-527 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Las mugeres [ie mujeres] dan valor, (Women give courage), Plate 4, "Los Desastres de la Guerra", c1810, (published 1863). A French soldier grapples with a woman, pulling her violently by the hair, while another woman stabs a second French soldier with a sword. The scene embodies the decisive role played by women in war. Victims of rape and assault, they find themselves in circumstances in which they are forced to defend themselves by any means necessary. 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 produce a series of artworks criticising both the French and the restored Bourbons. 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].