Focus on Man Mocked by Two Women and discuss the Background.
At the age of 75, living alone and in mental and physical despair, he completed the work as one of his 14 Black Paintings, his final major series, which were executed in oil directly onto the plaster walls of the house he was living in outside Madrid. Goya did not intend for any of these paintings to be seen by others; they were executed during an intense period of physical, mental and political disillusionment, and he never spoke or wrote about them. Although today they are considered amongst the most important works of his output, it was not until some 50 years after his death, around 1874, that they were taken down and transferred to a canvas support.
Black Paintings transferred to a canvas support Madrid