Francisco Goya. Self-Portrait, Plate 1 of "Los Caprichos"

Francisco Goya opened the "Caprichos" series with his own portrait: the first plate is titled "Francisco Goya y Lucientes, Painter". This impression was not made in the master's lifetime but in 1937, from his original plate.

The series of 80 plates in etching and aquatint was published in 1799. In 1937, in besieged Madrid, the Republican government of Spain decided to publish Goya's famous series: his original plates were brought in and 19th-century paper was selected. Four series, "Los Caprichos", "The Disasters of War", "Proverbs" and "Tauromaquia", were given by the trade unions of Spanish workers, through the Red International of Labour Unions (Profintern), to the Museum of the Revolution, the predecessor of today's Museum of Contemporary History of Russia.

In the catalogue the sheet is described as an etching on paper and dated 1937.