3-101-547 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Lo merecia, (He deserved it), Plate 29, "Los Desastres de la Guerra", c1810, (published 1863). Two men pull a rope attached to a body which is naked from the waist down. In the background is a crowd led by a man brandishing a stick, like a conductor. 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].