The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, plate 43 from Los Caprichos

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, plate 43 from Los Caprichos — Francisco Goya. 1797/99.

Medium: Etching and aquatint on ivory laid paper. Dimensions: Image: 18 × 12 cm (7 1/8 × 4 3/4 in.); Plate: 21.2 × 15 cm (8 3/8 × 5 15/16 in.); Sheet: 30.3 × 19.8 cm (11 15/16 × 7 13/16 in.).

Collection record: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.

Hovering between the grotesque and the comical, Francisco de Goya’s series Los caprichos ( Whims or Fantasies ) consists of 80 etchings satirizing Spanish society during the late 18th century. For this iconic image, which may have been intended as the title page of the series, Goya represented himself as an artist who has fallen asleep at his drawing table. In the background are his nightmares, the macabre tormenters that pervade the rest of these prints.

Description: © Art Institute of Chicago, original record, CC BY 4.0. HTML formatting removed; wording retained. Other artwork metadata: CC0.

Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.