Si sabrá mas el discipulo?

Might Not the Pupil Know More?

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Los Caprichos, plate 37. Si sabrá mas el discipulo? 1796-97. Etching, aquatint and burin, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

Goya published Los Caprichos in 1799. His February 6 announcement in the newspaper Diario de Madrid declared that he had:

chosen as subjects suitable for his work, from the multitude of follies and mistakes common in every civil society and from the vulgar prejudices and lies authorized by custom, ignorance or self-interest, those that he has thought most fit to furnish material for ridicule, and at the same time to exercise the artist’s imagination.

Goya was careful to say that his engravings did not refer to particular individuals, but his contempt for the clergy was undisguised. He withdrew the 240 sets of 80 prints from public sale after only two days. A visitation by the inquisition may have been played into his decision.