Etienne JEAURAT1699-1789 attributed to "Les Lunettes" oil on canvas, gilded wood frame, vintage 60x52.
this painting illustrates one of the famous greedy tales written by Jean de la Fontaine, and published between 1665 and 1674.
Less known for his tales than for his Fables, Jean de la Fontaine is nonetheless a talented storyteller.
He achieves the feat of speaking bluntly about sexuality without seeming to.
By not naming anything explicitly, it provokes the complicity of the reader, who, putting aside his innocence, easily understands what the author is trying to say to him.
The glasses, therefore, tell us the story of a young beardless man who enters a convent, disguised as a nun. After nine months had passed, one of the sisters had to be delivered from an unexplained pregnancy, and the culprit was therefore sought.
The superior mother, glasses on her nose In order not to judge the case lightly, have these young ladies undress, in order to see if among them, an impostor is hiding. In order to preserve innocent spirits, and to respect their modesty, young women are ordered to flatten a square of cloth knitted in loincloth on their sex. After having done everything to hide her illegitimate protuberance, Sister Jouvenceau lets herself be seduced by so many charming round shapes by her side.
It is then that we can read the following edifying verses, illustrated by our table:
Firm nipples and similar springs
Had soon played the machine.
She escaped, broke the thread suddenly,
Like a courier breaking his halter,
And jumped straight to the prioress's nose,
Flying glasses just now
Up to the floor.
It took very little
Don't see the glasses.
The youngster ends up tied to a tree, in order to be beaten by the horde of his angry false fellows. Lucky and clever, he significantly changed the account of his adventures when a miller came to pass; and now he subtly escaped his fatal plan, leaving the poor miller to wipe out the woes of his bad behavior.
We are here far from the moral of the Fables of our friend Jean de la Fontaine. Strongly displeasing to Puritan and well-thinking society of the time, these tales remained in the shadows, but were the delight of painters and engravers of the 17th and 18th centuries such as Etienne Jeaurat.
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