Correos Espana The Milkmaid of Bordeaux and Los Caprichos Buho Maxim Card

CORREOS ESPANA on 31 May 1996 issued a series of First Day Cover stamps to  commemorate the 250th anniversary of Spanish artist Francisco de Goya's birth. One of those stamps featured his painting of "The Milkmaid of Bordeaux", which carried a  face value of 30 Spanish Peseta. Postmark cancellation originated from Madrid.

According to Prado Museum (Madrid), where the painting is exhibited, the figure has traditionally been considered a milkmaid, mounted on the back of a mule and carrying a jug overflowing with milk. It followed the tradition of figures of trades and professions, which began in European art with the first Italian examples from the beginning of the 17th century.

As for the sketch  in this maxim card, it shows an owl (buho), which  in  Spanish is  symbolic of a street-walker or prostitute. The text from the Madrid Biblioteca Nacional explicitly states: ‘The old witches give them (young girls) lessons to enable them to fly (volar = practice the art of prostitution) throughout the world, setting them off for the first time even if it be with only a broomstick between their legs’.

This etching was among the many  Los Caprichos sketches that Goya produced. Had this series, including the one shown here,  been interpreted as social-political critique on Spanish nobility and clergy, which in fact it was, Goya would have been  prosecuted under the Inquisition laws.

Source: Johnson, R. S., Francisco Goya, Los Caprichos, R.S. Johnson Fine Art, Chicago, 1992, pp. 162-164.