This summer, the Print Room hosts a series of etching by the Spanish artist Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828), ‘Los Desastres de la Guerra’ (Disasters of War). It's a rare opportunity to see the entire series of eighty prints in the Netherlands. By displaying all the prints together, a better sense of how the series evolves is given. This exhibition is a reprise. sd the exhibition , by .

The etchings were printed from eighty copper plates made by Goya between 1810 and 1820. Several editions were printed from the plates; the eighty etchings in the collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen come from the first edition (1863). The captions on several etchings contain spelling errors that were corrected in later editions.

Because numerous impressions were made from the plates, over the years the plates became damaged. As a result the later prints are of a poorer quality. On the relatively early examples in the museum’s collection it is possible to identify the various printmaking techniques that Goya employed.