Feminine folly
Technical details
Author:
Franciso de Goya y Lucientes
Title:
Feminine folly
Timeline:
1816-1824, published in 1864
Technique:
Aquafortis, aguatint and drypoint
Description
Different-looking women, all well-dressed, toss two males in a blanket in a game of bubbler. More than men, they are disjointed puppets with which one could do anything. This game was sometimes played with these puppets, better than with people made of flesh and bone. The division of the sexes is clear in this ‘folly’: whether puppets or real, those tossed in the blanket are male. A man of little substance may be treated as an insubstantial dummy by the fair sex. Moreover, what is underneath the blanket is an association between donkey and man, as if that were the true condition of whoever allowed themselves to be treated this way. In one of the tests made by Goya for this etching, he wrote: ‘You play bubbler with donkeys’.
Location in the museum
You may find this artwork on Floor 2 Goya’s Etchings