Back through the centuries for this piece of al
fresco reverse cowgirl (as it would not have been called at the time!)
action. In a sylvan landscape a lady guides her lover's erection into her
vagina while her companion gazes at it raptly. We confess that this is
still a sight that fills us with delight even after nearly forty years! No
scrabbling around on the grass for this couple as they have a luxurious looking
cushion and a large piece of fabric on which to disport themselves.
Marcantonio Raimondi
This picture has a rather convoluted history.
It is one of a series of erotic engravings of sexual positions
produced in book form under the title I Modi by Marcantonio
Raimondi (1480-1534) in 1524. An engraver, he based his pictures on a
series of paintings produced by Giulio Romano (1499-1546) for the Duke of
Mantua, Federico II Gonzago's new palazzo in Mantua. Romano was unaware
that Raimondi had used his paintings as the basis for his engravings until
Raimondi was imprisoned by Pope Clement VII for producing them. The
Pope ordered all copies of the books to be destroyed. Romano
escaped imprisonment as his paintings were a private commission and were not,
unlike Raimondi's book, for public consumption.
Pietro Aretino by Titian
The poet and author Pietro Aretino (1492-1556),
after going to see Romano's originals, then composed sixteen erotic sonnets to
accompany the pictures and he also helped get Raimondo released from
prison. A second edition of I modi was then published in
1527 which included Raimondi's illustrations and Aretino's sonnets, in the
first known example of erotic pictures and text being included in one
publication.
Apart from a few fragments in the British Museum, the
1527 edition is lost, although Aretino's sonnets survived. Later Agostino
Carracci (1557-1602) reconstructed the illustrations (he must have had access
to at least a partial copy at that time, as his illustrations are very close to
the British Museum fragments). In 1798 another edition of I Modi was
published in Paris with Carracci's engravings reworked by the French artist
Jacques Joseph Coiny (1761-1809). These are the illustrations we have
today.
Angélique et Médor byToussaint Dubreuil (1561-1602)
The story of Angélique et Médor (all the
illustrations in I Modi were of famous lovers of myth and
history) comes from Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto
(1477-1533). Based on the much older Song of Roland (Roland and Orlando
are the same person) it tells the story of Orlando's love for the pagan
princess, Angélique who he married. However, she began a passionate
affair with the Saracen called Médor.
Angélique et Médor by François Boucher (1763)
He carved her name into the bark
of a tree but Orlando discovered it (you can just see his figure at the right
of the engraving at the top of the post). It was her betrayal that made
him furioso. Perhaps Roland, who as a Paladin of Charlemagne
is a sort of French equivalent of Lancelot of King Arthur's round table, was
boring in bed and didn't indulge in athletic al fresco girl on
top bonking. Orlando carved the inscription off the tree and imprisoned his
wife in a tower. However, she told Orlando that he couldn't carve away
her love for Médor and eventually Angélique killed herself, in a typical end
for the sexually aggressive woman in European literature.
Angélique et Médor by Bartholomeus Spranger (1580)
The story of Angélique et Médor is not so well known today but during the renaissance and after the story of the lovers was an inspiration to a number of artists, although none display the graphic eroticism that Giulio Romano's lost painting would have had, given the engravings based upon it.
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