It's a Pity You Don't Have Something Else to Do!

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (Francisco de Goya)

about 1808–1814

Brush and brown wash, pen and black ink, Brush, Wash, Pen

J. Paul Getty Museum

A woman stands with two large ceramic jugs, one held in her arms and the other hanging from her left side. She wears a dark dress with a white apron and her hair is styled up. Throughout his work, Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes expressed himself freely and often with humor. This page from his "Album C" seems, at first glance, to be one of his depictions of working girls. This young woman, however, wears a fine dress, jewelry, and a rather coy hairstyle and displays a graceful, almost cultivated bearing. She is pretty, not vacuous, but her questioning gaze and awkward cradling of the jug betray her uncertainty. Goya's caption, the drawing's title, tells the whole story: He admonishes her for playing at being a peasant, a practice then fashionable among the upper classes. Even as he rebuked this young w