It is nicely stretched (Bien tirada está), plate 17 from "Los Caprichos"

In the pictureIn a room of dark aquatint, a young woman bends deeply at the waist and, with one foot on a low box in front of her, pulls up her stocking. Her legs show beneath a white blouse and a hitched-up skirt. On the right sits an old woman in a white headscarf with a white cloth over her knees, resting her chin on one hand and looking toward the young woman. The lid of the box has round ornaments, and at the back left is a dark mass that looks like a bed. The upper half of the picture is an empty black field. "17." is engraved at upper right and "Bien tirada está." at the bottom.

BackgroundThe old woman is read as the procuress who appears again and again in Los Caprichos. It is a scene of her checking the young woman's appearance before she goes out to meet clients, and the title, "It is nicely stretched," is interpreted as a remark about the stocking that also carries a double meaning. Similar figures appear two plates earlier, in plate 15, Pretty Teachings. The techniques are etching, burnished aquatint and burin. The 24.99×15.01cm in the Met's record is the size of the sheet, not the plate, and it entered the museum in 1916 as a gift of Walter E. Sachs.

Puzzle tipThe black background covers more than half the picture. The woman's white blouse and bare legs and the old woman's headscarf and the white cloth on her knees are the brightest pieces, so fit them first. Next come the straight edges of the box at lower right, its round lid ornaments, and the spot the woman's toes touch. The black aquatint at the top is almost impossible to tell apart piece by piece, so fill it inward from the number pieces and the plate border. 24 pieces is recommended.