Goya's Last Works

A close look at Goya’s final years and his brilliant culminating work

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746–1828) spent the last four years of his life living in Bordeaux with other political émigrés from Spain and South America. In those years he created small-scale, intimate pieces, including uncommissioned portraits of friends and family, miniature paintings on ivory plaques, and numerous drawings and lithographs. These works attest to the artist’s continuing vitality in his old age and also offer insight into his life in Bordeaux.
This beautiful book presents fifty-one key works from Goya’s late period along with two essays that illuminate his works of that time. Jonathan Brown retells the story of Goya’s difficult years in exile when he nevertheless continued to make art, experimenting with the new medium of lithography, inventing a technique of miniature painting on ivory, and painting remarkable portraits of friends and supporters. Susan Grace Galassi describes the rich historical and cultural milieu of Bordeaux and establishes a biographical context and sense of place that underscore the triumph of Goya’s final achievement.