Towards the end of Album C there are various drawings in which Freedom, Reason or Justice play a leading role, either as allegories or through textual references. This has led historians such as José López-Rey, author of the only monograph on this album, to date it between 1810 and 1020, as he believed this allegorical presence was related to the triumph of liberalism with the arrival of the Liberal Triennium in 1820. His idea is supported by Pierre Gassier in the catalogue raisonné of his drawings, and by other Spanish historians, including Lafuente Ferrari and Valeriano Bozal. On the other hand, a group of Anglo-Saxon historians led by Eleanor A. Sayre, see 1814 as the album’s ending date and this has more recently been ratified by Juliet Wilson. This debate about the dates proves that there are still numerous gaps and questions in our knowledge of Goya’s work. In part, this is due to the lack of documentary information about him in those years, but most of all, it is a result of the breadth of his intellectual interests, which led him to address matters whose essential humanity made them a permanent presence throughout his final years of life. In the coming years, our expanding knowledge of Goya’s work should allow us to reflect upon these aspects in order to determine a more accurate chronology and to analyze his overall oeuvre. Meanwhile, these uncertainties will remain.

In the context of his other drawings of prisoners and victims of the Inquisition, we can relate the present drawing to Goya’s hopes for the liberal reformist policies ushered in by the Cadiz parliament in 1812. Moreover, the allegories foun in drawings such as Light and Shadows (C 117), Divine Reasons. Do not Abandon Anyone (C 122) or Justice (C 118), lead us to the final prints from the Emphatic Caprichos, which were probably made around the same time. The personage in this drawing joyfully received Freedom, which is symbolically represented in the form of Heavenly light. At his feet, an inkwell and a sheet of paper half-full of writing may allude to freedom of the press, which the Cadiz parliament enacted in 1810. And his clothing reflects middle-class fashions from the war years. The loose brushstrokes in the final drawings from this album foreshadow the expressive freedom that characterizes the preparatory drawings for Goya’s Disparates (Matilla, J. M.: "Álbum C 115, Divina Libertad", in Goya en tiempos de guerra, Madrid: Museo del Prado, 2008, pp. 396, 398).

Goya’s Album C exemplifies the complexity of his work. Made during the Peninsular War and the posterior repression under the reign of Ferdinand VII, it addresses subjects linked to many facets of that period. Other authors believe this album extends through the years of the Liberal Triennium (1820-23), as they see a relation between some of its drawings and the joy associated with the restoration of the Constitution of Cadiz in 1820. Still, those compositions can just as well be viewed in the same context as similar compositions from Goya’s Disasters of War. The subjects in Album C range from aspects of daily life, including numerous beggars, to dream visions of the world of night. One especially large group consists of drawings with victims of the Inquisition or of cruelty in prisons, and this recently led Juliet Wilson-Bareau to call it the Inquisition Album, although as we already stated, this is not the only subject addressed therein. In fact, another notable group of images criticizes the habits of monastic orders and the life of friars defrocked by the French authorities’ disentailment decrees.

Of Goya’s albums, this is the one with the most works, as well as the only one to have survived almost intact. It was never taken apart, and was not subjected to consecutive sales. Hence, it was almost complete when it arrived at the Museo del Prado from the Museo de la Trinidad. Of 126 known drawings, 120 are at the Museo del Prado. One is at the Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid (C 56), one at the British Museum in London (C 88), and two at the Hispanic Society of America in New York (C 71 and C 128). Finally, two others are in a private collection in that city (C 11 and C 78) (Text drawn from Matilla, J. M.: "Álbum C 91, Muchos an acabado asi. Álbum C 101, No se puede mirar", en Goya en tiempos de guerra, Museo del Prado, 2008, p. 393).