All known drawings from Francisco Goya’s private “Witches and Old Women” album are being presented in their original sequence, thanks to extensive technical research undertaken by conservators, curators and art historians. An exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery in London (until May 25) marks the first time that all 22 ink drawings, which include depictions of elderly women fighting, witches carrying babies on their backs and pensioners dancing, have been shown together since their sale and dispersal in Paris in 1877.
In what the noted Goya scholar Juliet Wilson-Bareau calls a “feat in forensics”, conservators and curators spent months examining the sheets to determine the pictures’ correct order. Although Goya (1746-1828) meticulously numbered each sketch, eight lost their numbers over the years.
