3-101-568 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Lo peor es pedir, (The worst thing is to beg), Plate 55, "Los Desastres de la Guerra", c1810, (published 1863). Famine: a group of starving people beg the help of a young woman who passes by, head lowered. Their faces are gaunt, their legs and arms are mere bones and their clothing is ragged. The well-dressed young woman may be a prostitute, a profession that offered many women a solution to the difficult circumstances caused by the war. This would explain why her gaze seems fixed on the French officer watching impassively. 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].