This is one of a group of drawings from Album C -numbers 85 through 114- offering images of people tortured by the Inquisition. Their critical view is consistent with the ideas that Juan Antonio Llorente (1756-1823) expressed in his historical studies of the Spanish Inquisition, which led to its reform and posterior elimination. Goya painted that clergyman’s portrait precisely between 1810 and 1812 (Sao Paulo, Museu de Arte), so it is more than likely that he had first-hand knowledge of Llorente’s works. These had been published in two separate books in 1812: Anales de la inquisicón de España [...] desde el establecimiento [...] por los reyes católicos hasta el año 1530, and Memoria histórico sobre cuál ha sido la opinion nacional de España acerca del tribunal de la Inquisición. The degree to which these books and Goya’s drawings share the same ideology leads us to think that, as he had previously done in his Caprichos, the artist approached these subjects on the basis of textual descriptions, then developed images that focused a timeless and universal criticism on the Inquisitions disproportionate sentences, the injustice of its torture and the brutality of the death sentence. On one hand, while the Inquisition was the object of legal debate during the Enlightenment, executions by garrote were carried out with some frequency by both sides during the Peninsular War, and this, too, is visible in the Disasters of War. One exemplary case was the execution in Cadiz in 1809 of the ex-friar and Napoleonic agent, Luis Gutiérrez [Ronald Fraser, La maldita guerra de España, Barcelona: Crítica, 2007, p. 526-528], whose fame lasted until well into the 19th century.

On the other, if this album was begun at the beginning of the Peninsular War and completed in the early years of King Ferdinand VII’s absolutist repression, then its drawings also stand as a condemnation of the war’s repressive practices and of the threat posed to Spanish society by the reestablishment of the Inquisition in 1814. The use of the garrote led to its establishment by the penal reform of 1822 as an official method of executing death sentences. Despite the fact that it was in use when Goya made these drawings, they are not depictions of specific events, but rather, as often occurred in his work, stereotypical images that he used to channel his critical spirit.

In the titles that Goya wrote on his drawings and prints, his choice of words is very specific and expressive. Here, “many” emphasizes the frequency of this tragic end, and Goya’s interest in the subject is already clear in earlier works, including his print, The Garroted, and two of the Disasters of War: no. 34, On Account of a Knife and no. 14. The Way is Hard, in which the figure of the clergyman coincides almost literally with that of the Dominican who offers absolution in the present drawing. Moreover, the executioner who operates the garrote recalls the one who rests his foot on one arm of the crank to hasten the job in the drawing Torture by Mancuerda (F 56, New York, The Hispanic Society). And here, once again, we see the crowd watching the execution unperturbed, this time led by two Franciscan monks. Formally, Goya creates a luminous diagonal that leads the eye from the powerfully dynamic executioner to his immobile victim (Matilla, J. M.: "Álbum C 91, Muchos an acabado asi. Álbum C 101, No se puede mirar", in Goya en tiempos de guerra, Madrid: Museo del Prado, 2008, pp. 393, 396).

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).