Plate 12 from "La Tauromaquia": The crowd hamstrings the bull with lances, sickles, banderillas and other arms

Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes) Spanish

Not on view

In his treatise on bullfighting published in 1807, José Vargas Ponce disparaged the old custom of releasing the bull to the masses when it was unable to continue the fight. He observed: "In ancient times Moorish slaves . . . with pitchforks or medias lunas [sickles with blades shaped like a half moon] used to cripple the bulls by cutting their nerves and, escape impossible, they were finished off by the crowd." The ritual seems to be the very moment captured in this plate, where the bull is surrounded by a mob and a figure at right is about to launch a firecracker-laden banderilla (barbed dart).

Plate 12 from "La Tauromaquia": The crowd hamstrings the bull with lances, sickles, banderillas and other arms, Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes) (Spanish, Fuendetodos 1746–1828 Bordeaux), Etching, aquatint, drypoint

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Plate 12 from
Plate 12 from

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