El famoso americano, Mariano Ceballos (The Celebrated Mariano Ceballos), from the Bulls of Bordeaux

Details

Delteil 286; Harris 283 II (von II).

Description

Plate 1 from the series: The Bulls of Bordeaux. An excellent, fine impression of the 2nd state from the edition of one hundred copies, published by Gaulon in Bordeaux in 1825. The present image is one of four large lithographs known under the title “The Bulls of Bordeaux”, which Goya executed towards the end of his life, still keen to experiment and in search of new ways of expression. The unstable political situation in Spain had prompted Goya to go into exile in France in 1824, first to Paris and later that year to Bordeaux, where he met the French lithographer Cyprien Gaulon, who had opened a workshop there in 1818. Gaulon encouraged Goya to experiment with the new medium of lithography by drawing directly onto the stone with a lithographic chalk and using a palette knife to create highlights – a method that Géricault and Delacroix had already used to brilliant effect. – Set into a paper mask along the edges. Verso with a smoothed vertical centrefold and somewhat stained. Sporadically restored and redrawn at the edges. Annotations in pencil and brown pen on the verso. Otherwise in good condition.