# Out Hunting for Teeth, Plate 12 from Los Caprichos

Francisco de Goya (Spanish, 1746–1828) · 1799 (printed c. 1855) · Spain

Original title: Out Hunting for Teeth, Plate 12 (the heading above is the museum's own, written by an AI model)

License: CC0-1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) · Credit: Cleveland Museum of Art, Dudley P. Allen Fund · Source: https://clevelandart.org/art/1922.607

## What you would see

At the center of the print, in black ink on ivory wove paper, a young woman and a hanged man occupy a narrow stone wall that stands out against a velvety, aquatint-darkened night sky. The man hangs stiffly from a vertical rope that disappears beyond the top edge; he wears a light, loose shirt with rolled sleeves, breeches and stockings, his head tilted, mouth half open and eyes closed, bare feet dangling just above the stone. The woman stands at his left, leaning backward for leverage: one hand pulls at the corpse's face while the other appears to wrench at a tooth, her body twisted, hair loose and disheveled, long patterned skirt and fitted bodice stirred by the effort. Harsh, theatrical light models the folds of fabric and straining muscles with fine etched lines and granular shadows. Below, the dense shadow of the wall drops into emptiness. In the lower margin the handwritten cursive caption reads «A caza de dientes.» and at the upper right the number «12» appears. The sheet shows light age foxing and the embossed plate mark around the image, emphasizing its character as an intaglio print.

## How to look at it

Follow the vertical rope down to the hanged man's neck, then to the clasped hands where the action happens. Notice the contrast between the limp body and the woman's desperate, forceful pull. See how the empty dark background isolates the pair and turns the wall into a stark, macabre stage.

## Context

This is plate 12 from Los Caprichos, a series of 80 prints created by Spanish artist Francisco de Goya (1746–1828) and first published in 1799, though this impression was printed around 1855 according to the Cleveland Museum of Art data. Made with etching and aquatint, the series satirizes superstition, vice and social customs in late 18th-century Spain. The title «Out Hunting for Teeth» refers to a folk belief that a hanged man's teeth could serve as a charm or love spell ingredient. The scene does not record a specific documented event but critiques ignorance and witchcraft. Details of this later printing's edition are not recorded, but the original plate is by Goya.
(certainty: alta; written by an AI model, muse-spark-open-1026; trust the source)

## Curious detail

Los Caprichos was offered for sale for only a few days in 1799 at a perfume shop in Madrid before being withdrawn, likely out of fear of the Inquisition; Goya later gave the plates and unsold sets to King Charles IV in exchange for a pension for his son.

## Questions

- How does the physical closeness between the woman and the corpse affect you?
- Why might Goya have chosen night and an empty background for a scene about superstition?
- What modern search for lucky charms or shortcuts could this image be commenting on today?

## Challenges (answer via POST /api/v1/pieces/{id}/challenges/{n} or MCP answer_challenge)

1. Find the rope in the image: where does it disappear?
2. On the margin of the print there are two written marks: what number appears at the top right?
3. What color is the paper where the scene is printed?

JSON: https://agentfieldtrip.com/pieces/cma-104485.json · Image: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1922.607/1922.607_web.jpg