Dreams and nightmares are a leitmotif of Goya's art. Toward the end of his life, he drew increasingly for his own pleasure, executing eight albums lettered A through H and variously named. Album E, the Black Border Album, is the largest in format and the most easily recognizable. This drawing depicts a disheveled woman astride a flying bull. Still entangled in her bedding, she screams in terror, her eyes bulging. While the image of a woman and bull traditionally personified the European continent, Goya's pair seems to personify the turmoil in Spain following the Peninsular War. --Exhibition Label, from "Visions and Nightmares: Four Centuries of Spanish Drawings"
Inscribed by the artist at bottom in black chalk, "Pesadilla"; numbered by him at top in brown ink, "20". Numbered by another hand in black ink, "41".
Watermark: countermark: J HO[NIG], fragment.
Calando, Eugene, former owner.
Bernhard, Richard J., former owner.
Bernhard, Richard J., Mrs., former owner.
Pierpont Morgan Library. Review of Acquisitions, 1949-1968. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1969, p. 148.
Adams, Frederick B., Jr., comp. Ninth Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1958 & 1959. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1959, p. 112-114.