Muchachos al Avío (Lads Making Ready)

Datelate 18th-early 19th century

Maker Francisco José Goya y Lucientes Spanish, 1746-1828

Label TextWelcome to the eerie and enigmatic world of Los Caprichos! In this astonishing series of prints, Francisco de Goya (1746–1828) takes aim at Spanish society at the close of the 18th century. This was an era marked by numerous social upheavals: the fiscal crises wrought by war and taxation, the shifting power dynamics of the ruling classes, the draconian fanaticism of the Spanish Inquisition, and the turning point in European thought known as the Enlightenment. In sardonic and often surrealistic vignettes, the Los Caprichos series lays bare the outmoded belief systems, irrelevant superstitions, ignorance, decadence, and hypocrisy of the status quo, and it champions reason, justice, social reform, and intellectual freedom. Accompanying texts added by Goya hint at the meaning of each image, which is often obscure to us. Because the series follows no sequential narrative, its stories are open to many interpretations. To Goya’s contemporaries, it would have been obvious that these four roguish men are contrabandistas, or smugglers. Resting on rocks in a wooded landscape, they cut and smoke tobacco. High excise taxes on tobacco in Spain made smuggling it from Gibraltar and Portugal very profitable. Some scholars have interpreted this print as a critique of these exorbitant tariffs, levied to offset the country’s failing economy. Guns and ropes at the men’s feet suggest that these scoundrels are not only smugglers but bandits, lying in wait for passing coaches full of wealthy travelers.

Object number44.488

Photo CreditPhoto: Scott Leen

Exhibition HistorySeattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, SAM on Paper: Francisco de Goya’s Los Caprichos, October 3, 2025 - March 29, 2026.

Credit LineEugene Fuller Memorial Collection

MediumEtching, aquatint, burin