Herr Valerian von Loga, who has an intimate acquaintance with and profound knowledge of Goya’s etchings and lithographs, has just published in Berlin a series of thirty-two reproductions of the rarest examples of the painter’s work in these media. The explanatory notes which accompany the plates are of great interest both to the student and the collector. This writer assumes that José del Castillo, who worked with Goya for the tapestry factory of Santa Bárbara, urged him to devote some of his restless activity to the etching needle. He holds that in his earlier attempts, and particularly in ‘The Flight into Egypt,’ the technique reminds one of Tiepolo. This etching is the work of an apprentice hand, and while it is not devoid of charm, it runs on bad lines. Goya’s acquaintance with the fundamental rules of etching was so imperfect that, in the first prints of his ‘St. Francisco de Paula,’ the inscription C. A. R. J. appears turned the wrong way. It is the opinion of Herr Valerian von Loga that in almost all the plates executed at this period there is a certain emptiness and unsteadiness of drawing, while the unsuccessful handling of light and shade betrays the work of the beginner, but ‘what is new and original, and above all, characteristic of Goya, is the manner in which the whole is worked out according to the painter’s mode of working. We see the artist taking pains, not to give form to the things themselves, but to their appearance. On this account outlines are omitted and contours left open, and there are no regularly-growing, flowing lines, while parallel and crossing strokes are rare. The dark surfaces are composed of a great number of short, chopped-off strokes; the entire workmanship is nervous and undecided. It is clear here that the ability of the artist was far behind the good-will, and at times too his inspiration was insufficient.’ In his copies of Velazquez Goya appears to have been the first to introduce into Spain Le Prince’s ten-year-old process of aquatinta, a process which in later times he developed to the highest perfection. In 1779 he brought out an etching from one of his own designs for the tapestry factory. His work so pleased the Prince of the Asturias, for whom it was executed, that the painter is credited with an intention of publishing all his Santa Bárbara pictures as etchings. But his growing popularity as a portrait painter now claimed his activities for more remunerative work, and for more than ten years he laid aside the etching needle in favour of the brush. We learn from a memorial preserved in the Palace Archives that the graciousness of his reception, the success of his tapestry designs, and the admiration that Charles III. had expressed for his two religious studies of ‘Christ Crucified’ and of ‘St. Francis,’ emboldened the artist to proffer himself for the position of Court Painter. This honour was denied, but he was elected a member of the Académia de San Fernando.