''The Prisoners'' is a series of three etchings by Francisco de Goya, depicting imprisoned men with indistinct faces, bound with leg irons in stress positions. The prints are not dated, but they are believed to have been made between 1810 and 1815, around the time Goya started his print series ''

The Disasters of War ''The Disasters of War'' ( es, Los desastres de la guerra) is a series of 8280 prints in the first published edition (1863), for which the last two plates were not available. See "Execution". prints created between 1810 and 1820 by the Spani ...

''. Political considerations made it impossible for Goya to publish the prints during his lifetime. Although they do not share the format, paper, or style of ''The Disasters of War'', similarities of the etching technique date them to a similar period. Copies of the three engravings, together with a fourth Goya print '' The Colossus'' were kept together in an album of working impressions of ''The Disasters of War'' owned by Goya's friend

Juan Agustín Ceán Bermúdez Juan Agustín Ceán Bermúdez (17 September 1749 in Gijón3 December 1829 in Madrid) was a Spanish writer on art. Biography Bermúdez was born in Gijón, Asturias. He founded an art academy at Seville, and was given responsibility to order the Ar ...

, with the three prints of ''The Prisoners'' prints glued in rather than bound with the others. After Ceán Bermúdez died in 1829, the album was later in the collection of

Tomás Harris Tomás "Tommy" Joseph Harris (10 April 1908 – 27 January 1964) was a Spanish-speaking MI6 officer who worked with Juan Pujol García, an important double agent for the British during World War II, in what became known as the Garbo dec ...

and since 1975 it has been held by the British Museum in London. These prints have titles added by Goya himself in pencil, but individual prints are sometimes known as ''The Little Prisoner''. Goya's titles for the three etchings are criticisms of judicial torture. File:Francisco de Goya - The Little Prisoner - 2005.280 - Cleveland Museum of Art.jpg, ''Tan bárbara la seguridad como el delito'' ("The custody is as barbarous as the crime") File:The Custody of a Prisoner Does Not Call for Torture (La seguridad de un reo no exige tormento) MET DP853893.jpg, ''La seguridad de un reo no exige tormento'' ("The custody of a criminal does not call for torture") File:Goya - Si es delinquente q.e muera presto. (If he is guilty, let him die quickly) (Prisoners), 1980.170, about 1810–14.jpg, ''Si es delincuente que muera presto'' ("If he is guilty, let him die quickly") Tan bárbara la seguridad como el delito ("The custody is as barbarous as the crime") shows a prisoner in ragged clothes with his hair and beard overgrown, shackled to heavy chains in a squatting position, with his hands clasped as if begging or praying. La seguridad del reo no exige tormento ("The custody of a criminal does not call for torture") shows a man chained in an unnatural diagonal position across the frame, beside a wall with a grate to the right. He is bent double and leaning to the left, with his hands bound behind his back, and only his heels resting on the floor. His tattered trousers are torn off above the knee. Si es delincuente que muera presto ("If he is guilty, let him die quickly") shows a man slumped forward to the right of an arched opening. A collar around his neck is held up by a chain, and his hands are chained behind his back, but his feet are held forward by heavy irons. The

Museo del Prado The Prado Museum ( ; ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It is widely considered to house one of the world's finest collections of European art, dating from the ...

in Madrid holds three of Goya's ink and gouache preparatory drawings (a chained prisoner viewed from the front, a chained prisoner in profile, and a prisoner chained in a seated position), with others in various other museums, including the

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

and the Musée Bonnat in Bayonne. Goya may have drawn some inspiration from earlier engravings of prisons, including

Piranesi Giovanni Battista (or Giambattista) Piranesi (; also known as simply Piranesi; 4 October 1720 – 9 November 1778) was an Italian Classical archaeologist, architect, and artist, famous for his etchings of Rome and of fictitious and atmospheric ...

's ''Carceri d'invenzione'' ( Imaginary Prisons). File:A Giant Seated in a Landscape, sometimes called 'The Colossus' MET DT649.jpg, Goya, ''The Colossus'', c.1818 File:Goya - Silueta de prisionero encadenado de frente, D04126.jpg, Silueta de prisionero encadenado de frente, Prado File:Goya - Prisionero encadenado, sentado de perfil a la izquierda, D04327.jpg, Prisionero encadenado, sentado de perfil a la izquierda, Prado File:Goya - Prisionero encadenado, sentado, D04125.jpg, Prisionero encadenado, sentado, Prado File:Goya - Preso encadenado, Musée Bonnat de Bayonne.jpg, Ink wash drawing of a chained prisoner, in the Musée Bonnat, Bayonne

References