Aan Graaf Verhemelte

From LinkedCulture

What kind of society needs two servants just to get a nobleman dressed? In this 1797 to 1799 etching and aquatint, Francisco de Goya shows a powdered, self-important aristocrat standing perfectly still while one servant crouches to dress his legs and another attends from behind, with a shelf of bottles and vials nearby. The scene looks almost comic, but that was the point. Goya used satire to smuggle genuine social criticism past the Spanish Inquisition, making this print one of the sharpest attacks on aristocratic uselessness ever put on paper.

Written by LinkedCulture for its video on this object. Machine-generated (claude-sonnet-4-6), not yet reviewed by a person. It is not part of the museum’s record.