A preparatory drawing for an unpublished plate from the Disasters of War, of which only two prints are known. The composition is framed in red chalk and the corners are emphasized with touches of the same material. Angular pencil marks on the back coincide with the emphasized corners on the front. A plate mark and the remains of black ink on the upper edge were made by the press when the drawing was transferred to a 160 x 223 mm copper plate. The figure lying in the foreground is similar in form and composition to the central figure in Disaster 22, So Much and More.

In this series of prints executed between 1810 and 1814 Goya offers a critical and personal vision of the consequences of the Spanish Peninsular War (1808-14) that is remote from the propagandistic images produced by his contemporaries. Through his etchings the artist condemned the irrationality of war and the brutality of both sides, which inevitably resulted in suffering, pain and death. The series’ meaning transcends a visual presentation of a specific conflict and can be considered the first critique of war in general. Disasters of War was the title added by the Real Academia de San Fernando in 1863 for the first edition of these prints, which were not published in Goya’s lifetime.