Enigmes Joyeuses pour les Bons Esprits, Plate 2

Jean Leclerc IV|Jan van Haelbeeck

ca. 1615 · Copper engraving · Drawings and Prints

Second plate of a group of 9 plates with small domestic scenes, engraved by Jan van Haelbeeck, which were either were made for, or reused by Jean Leclerc around 1615 in the sonnet series ‘Enigmes Joyeuses pour les Bons Esprits’, in which they were each published with a sonnet that hinted at the double meaning of the activities. In this plate, a woman, dressed in full 17th-century aristocratic style, stands in front of a man who, sitting on a wooden chair in front of her, is getting dressed, putting on his boots, one of which lies on a table next to him with his hat. They are inside a room with open window, and with a bed nect to the clothed table where the man's clothes lie. The plate accompanies one of the sonnets of the Enigmes, which describes an erotic encounter between the man and the woman in the illustration, corresponding to the double meaning that can be interpreted from the image. This double meaning of the images and sonnets of the Enigmes helps explain why most copies of the series, although very popular and influential in their day, have been lost.

Artist

Jean Leclerc IV|Jan van Haelbeeck

Date

ca. 1615

Medium

Copper engraving

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Mary Oenslager Fund, 2016