The first thing that seizes the eye in El Novio de mil mujeres is the sheer, almost comical abundance: a single, dapper man stands at the center, arms outstretched, surrounded on all sides by a dense crowd of women. Their faces, rendered in Posada’s unmistakable relief-cut lines, press in with a mix of curiosity, expectation, and perhaps a dash of skepticism. The man’s open gesture and confident stance suggest bravado, but the crowd’s sheer number turns his supposed triumph into something closer to farce.

The scene is both a boast and a satire, the exaggerated multitude hinting at the impossibility of satisfying so many desires—or egos—at once. Created between 1890 and 1909, this print belongs to the world of the Mexican penny press, where José Guadalupe Posada’s images became icons of popular culture. Such prints, often paired with satirical verse or corridos, were sold cheaply on the streets and read by a broad public hungry for humor, gossip, and social commentary. The relief-cut technique and letterpress text root the work firmly in this era of mass communication, when images like these poked fun at the follies of love, money, and reputation.

While the details of this particular sheet’s journey are lost to history, its survival in the Library of Congress collection speaks to the enduring appetite for Posada’s sharp wit and the lively, chaotic world he captured—one that still invites us to count the faces and imagine the stories behind each one.