Contemporary events such as the Peninsular War…

Contemporary events such as the Peninsular War have become a subject for painters, as in Spanish painter and engraver Francisco Goya’s The Disasters of War, a series of eighty-two prints created between 1810 and 1820.

Although Goya did not make known his intention when creating the plates, art historians view them as a visual protest against the violence of the 1808 Dos de Mayo Uprising, the subsequent Peninsular War of 1808–14 and the setbacks to the liberal cause following the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1814.

During the conflicts between Napoleon's French Empire and Spain, Goya had retained his position as first court painter to the Spanish crown and continued to produce portraits of the Spanish and French rulers.

Although deeply affected by the war, he kept private his thoughts on the art he produced in response to the conflict and its aftermath.

He was in poor health and almost deaf when, at sixty-two, he began work on the prints.

They will not be not published until 1863, thirty-fiveyears after his death.

It is likely that only then was it considered politically safe to distribute a sequence of artworks criticizing both the French and restored Bourbons.

In total, over a thousand sets have been printed, though later ones are of lower quality, and most print room collections have at least some of the set.