No quieren (They Don't Like It),

1808/09–12, printed 1863

Following the French invasion of northern Spain in the spring of 1808, the Peninsular War subjected the Spanish people to six years of cruelty, terror, and extreme privation. Griefstricken, Goya began work on his Disasters of War etchings following the brutal siege and capture of his boyhood city of Zaragoza, from December 1808 to February 1809. By 1814, Goya had completed fi fty-six of the eighty plates he would eventually create for Los Desastres; in the repressive political climate that followed the reinstatement of absolutist monarchy under Ferdinand VII, however, Goya’s series on the horrors of war remained unpublished in the artist’s lifetime. Ultimately, the plates were acquired by the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in 1863 and were published for the first time.