Man Mocked by Two Women

Deaf, in his 70s and living alone outside Madrid, Goya covered the walls of his farmhouse, which locals called the Quinta del Sordo, the House of the Deaf Man, with about 14 dark scenes he never meant to sell or explain. This was one of them, two women leaning together and laughing at a hunched man between them. For years viewers read his hidden hands as something obscene, and the women's laughter as mockery of it. Later photographs and x-rays, taken before the murals were lifted off the plaster and moved to canvas, suggest he may simply be holding a sheet of paper. Goya left no titles and no notes, so the joke, if it is one, stays with the two women.