3-101-546 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Populacho, (Rabble/Mob), Plate 28, "Los Desastres de la Guerra", c1810, (published 1863). A lynching. An afrancesado, or perhaps a French soldier, is being brutally beaten by a man and woman before a crowd of onlookers including a priest. The victim's feet are tied together and his buttocks are exposed. 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].