Young Woman (possibly a Sex Worker) with a Man (recto); Young Woman Wringing Her Hands over a Man's Naked Body (verso) (1796–97): Art, History and Details

Young Woman (possibly a Sex Worker) with a Man (recto); Young Woman Wringing Her Hands over a Man's Naked Body (verso) (1796–97) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Francisco de Goya (Spanish, 1746–1828).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Among the great figures of the pictorial arts in the West, Francisco de Goya is one of the very few whose work as a graphic artist is arguably even more important than his paintings. Alongside a prodigious output of prints, he created eight sketchbooks of drawings over the course of 30 years. This double-sided sheet comes from the so-called Album B, or Madrid Album, which, like all of them, was scattered throughout the world in public and private collections after his death. The drawings reveal Goya’s powers of invention and observation, and his biting satire. On the recto side of the sheet, a vulgar encounter between a prostitute and a pot-bellied lecher reveals the bluntness of the Goya’s social criticism. The verso drawing is less easily pinned down, though it follows traditional iconography for representations of Saint Margaret of Cortona, a nobleman’s mistress who repented and entered a convent after her lover’s dog led her to his murdered corpse.

Object facts

• Title: Young Woman (possibly a Sex Worker) with a Man (recto); Young Woman Wringing Her Hands over a Man's Naked Body (verso)
• Date: 1796–97
• Creator attribution: Francisco de Goya (Spanish, 1746–1828)
• Culture: Spain
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: brush and gray and black washes on laid paper
• Dimensions: Image: 18.7 x 12 cm (7 3/8 x 4 3/4 in.); Sheet: 23.5 x 14.5 cm (9 1/4 x 5 11/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - Spanish
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1995.15

A detail from the museum

Much of Francisco de Goya's graphic output of drawings and prints was not made public until well after his death.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Mariani, Valerio, "Primo centenario dalla morte di Francesco Goya : disegni inediti" Arte 31 (1928): 97-108.
• Wehle, Harry B. Fifty Drawings by Francisco Goya. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1938.
• López-Rey, José. Goya's Caprichos: Beauty, Reason & Caricature. [Princeton]: Princeton University Press, 1953. 2 vols.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.