This is a preparatory drawing for an unpublished plate from Los Caprichos. The only remaining print of that plate is a single proof printed on the back of another etching at the Biblioteca Nacional (1797-1799, No. 45637; H 119.I.2). It is part of Dreams, a group of drawings that form the basis for Los Caprichos and were a customary subject for representations during that period. Dream of Lies and Fickleness appears to be earlier than the more elaborate and modern Sleep of Reason (Capricho 43, G02131 / Dream 1, The Author Dreaming, D03923) and may have been considered for the frontispiece, as lies and all sorts of fickleness are the fundamental narrative thread of all the Caprichos. Specialists disagree as to the identity of the figures in this preparatory drawing and the subsequent print. Some believe it depicts the Duchess of Alba and Goya (Lefort, 1862; Nordström, 1962; Gassier, 1975; Wilson-Bareu, 1992), while others see Godoy and Queen Marie Louise (period manuscripts; Glendining, 1976 as a political-moral satire, resorting to trickery in love in order to obtain power and wealth; Vega, 1996). This drawing, like The Sleep of Reason, appears to be a first step in Goya’s reflections about the artist’s role in criticizing and denouncing the immorality of his peers, but he uses it as a metaphor of human beings in general, and the drawing contains variants that complete the print’s meaning. Approached like the darkness of night, it establishes a simile between sleep or dreams and the human mind. In this sense, painting would act in the same way as eloquence and poetry to censure vice. In this, the only portrait in the composition, the artist depicts himself facing forward with perfectly defined features. His expression clearly reflects contentment, as if he had just caught the butterfly. In the etching, however, he appears in profile and his expression has become passionate and imploring. Goya only depicts himself in one other plate from the Caprichos: The Sleep of Reason (D04162/G02131), although he also appears in the Self-Portrait from the definitive frontispiece (G02089). The layout differs from that of The Sleep of Reason; rather than seated at a desk with papers on the floor, he sits in an empty, indeterminate space that represents dreaming while simultaneously suggesting that life is a journey, an idea reinforced by the presence of luggage in the form of bundles visible behind him. Thus, Goya proposes his art between the castle in the background -which he bases on the myth of Hero and Leander that he may have seen in the Carracci’s fresco at the Villa Farnese in Rome, or through a print (López-Rey, 1952) that symbolizes the purity to which he aspires but can only be reached on the wings of Invention -and the mask of the material possessions that accompany, trick and hinder him. A pair of two-faced female figures (Fraud or Trickery according to Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia) cloud the painter’s desires, pulling him away from the representation of painting’s grand ideals and leading him, instead, to compose vulgar deceits employed by custom, ignorance or interest. The first enchants him with her inspiration, encouraging his most noble intellectual and artistic ambitions, while the second traps him through his material appetites and vices, which occupy the scene’s foreground, because they are the most dangerous and vulgar: money, pleasures, interests, greed and trickery, as embodied by the mask and the animals. These creatures are the offspring of Lies and have emerged from among her skirts to take their place alongside her in the dirt. Lies is characterized according to the iconographic tradition for that allegorical figure, with an unattractive face and a toad for company, while Perfidy also has a double face and is holding snakes in her hand. The visual play reaches beyond established iconography, though, as Goya reuses the allegorical elements in a more open manner. At the right, a grotesque figure with a coarse and smiling visage that recalls an animal’s head acquires human form through folds in the cloth. While some historians see it as a mask (Carderera Manuscript, 1863; Nördstrom, 1962), others view its physiognomy as that of a panther, an animal that Western culture then considered a negative symbol. In fact, Ripa included it as an allegory of Deceit (Mena, 2006). Dream of Lies and Fickleness is one of the most theatrical images of all Goya’s etchings. It contains his own image, and communicates directly with the viewer via the painter’s lackey, whose gesture demands their silence so as not to reveal the deceit. It has been related to Capricho 61, Volaverunt and the latter’s preparatory drawing (G02149/D04223), as both contain the female figure with butterfly wings as well as a character calling for silence in Volaverunt, the latter figure takes the form of a witch floating in the air at the center of the composition. The drawing shows the mark of the plate, due to the pressure of the press when the image was transferred to the 218 x 152 mm copper plate (Text drawn from Mena, M., María Teresa de Silva, duquesa de Alba, y Francisco de Goya, pintor. II, Los poetas y la duquesa, in La duquesa de Alba, musa de Goya. El mito y la historia, Madrid: Museo del Prado, 2006, pp. 47-60, 64).