'Barbarous Entertainment', a blind guitarist on the horns of a bull

In the pictureOn the right of a wide horizontal plate, a black bull stands braced on all four legs with its head lowered, and on its horns a man in a cape is lifted as if sitting astride them. The man clutches a guitar to his chest, kicks both legs out into the air to the left, and raises one arm high along with his cape. Under his broad-brimmed hat, his eyes are closed. The bull's tail curves up toward the upper right. The background is a light area with only a few horizontal lines, and a dark shadow lies across the ground. Beyond the plate's border line, a wide margin of paper remains.

BackgroundAs the title says, this plate shows a cruel game in which a blind guitar player is set before a bull as a laughingstock. Though there is a bull, it is not part of the Tauromaquia (1816) series recording bullfighting techniques; according to the Met's record, it was made in 1800–1804, between Los Caprichos (1799) and that series. It was not printed in Goya's lifetime, and impressions were made between 1828 and 1867. The techniques are etching, aquatint and drypoint, and at 17.7×21.9 cm the plate is much larger than Goya's prison prints. The sheet had been folded, and opened out it measures 45.3 cm across. It entered the collection in 1918 through the Rogers Fund.

Puzzle tipThe black body of the bull is the largest mass in the picture, so fit it first, then attach the head and the musician on its horns. The bright body of the guitar and the white curve of the bull's tail mark the upper left and right. The man's two legs and shoes stretching to the lower left are also easy pieces to miss. The ground shadow darkens toward the right, and the light background and margin are filled in last, using the plate's border line as a guide. 48 pieces is about right.