I Modi 2: Alcibiade et Glycere after Agostino Carracci and Giulio Romano

Here is the second engraving from the book of erotic sonnets I Modi, published in 1520.  As I noted in my post on the first of these, they were based on paintings by Giulio Romano, as engraved by Marcantonio Raimondi then reconstructed by Agostino Carracci and reworked by Jacques Joseph Coiny in 1798.

The other engravings in the series all relate to legendary or historical lovers but while Alcibiade was an Athenian statesman and general in the fifth century BC, Glycere was a Greek courtesan in the fourth century BC.  Their depiction as a couple is, therefore, pure fantasy with no mythical or historical precedent.  It is merely an excuse to show an athletic man leaping into the breach of a rather surprised looking woman.

Tenndresse from Les Chansons de Bilitis by Georges Barbier

This lovely illustration is by French artist Georges Barbier (1882-1932). Barbier didn't have his first exhibition until he was 29 years old but it was a great success and led to a career doing book, magazine and fashion illustrations. He also worked on theatrical set designs and costumes, including for the Folies Bergère, as well as designing glass and jewellery. He died, comparatively young, at the age of 50. 

These pictures come from a 1922 edition of Les Chansons de Bilitis by Pierre Louÿs. This work consisted of 143 prose poems with a lesbian theme which Louÿs claimed were translated from the works of an ancient Greek female poet and courtesan called Bilitis, who was a contemporary of Sappho. At the time they were first published, in 1894, they were accepted as translations of genuine ancient texts but in fact they were all created by Louÿs inspired by an encounter with a dancing girl in Algeria. In fact the dancing girl in question, Meriam ben Atala, even received a dedication as 'MbA' in the book. 

Its theme was controversial, not least because his treatment of lesbians is non-judgemental and sympathetic, whereas most lesbian characters in French literature had been portrayed in a less positive manner. Baudelaire (who was the subject of a censorship trial in 1857 for his work Les Fleurs du Mal, over lesbian themes) had referred to them as "damned women". Many books which tried to address lesbian themes or had lesbian scenes were banned in France in the second half of the nineteenth century. 

Louÿs got away with it by his erudite, sensuous and elegant writing and the fact that people believed that they were reading a translation of a genuine ancient text, with historical distance making the whole thing acceptable. The same applied to his novel, Aphrodite, published two years later and also featuring lesbian characters in Ancient Greece, 

The first illustration in this post accompanies the following text from the poem Tendresse: 

Ferme doucement tes bras, comme une ceinture, 

sur moi. Ô touche, ô touche ma peau ainsi! 

Ni l’eau ni la brise de midi ne sont plus 

douces que ta main. 

Aujourd’hui chéris-moi, petite soeur, c’est 

ton tour. Souviens-toi des tendresses que je 

t’ai apprises la nuit dernière, et près de moi 

qui suis lasse agenouille-toi sans parler. 

Close your arms gently, like a belt, 

on me. O touch, O touch my skin so! 

Neither the water nor the midday breeze are not anymore 

as sweet as your hand. 

Today cherish me, little sister, it is 

your turn. Remember the tenderness 

Taught you last night, and get close to me 

Who is tired, kneel down without speaking. 

The wonderful Art Nouveau illustrations by Barbier complement the text perfectly. 

Amorous Couple by Nicolas Lancret

This painting by Nicolas Lancret (1690-1743) is in stark contrast to the Fête galante paintings for which he was most famous  Fête galante was a term invented to describe Anotoine Watteau's (1684-1721) paintings of aristocrats in ball or fancy dress clothes disporting themselves in an idealised countryside.

Lancret, who was thrown out of the Académie Royale for bad behaviour, joined the workshop of Watteau's teacher, Claude Gillot,and by the 1720, after the death of Watteau and Gillot, monopolised the fête galante style, eventually producing over 700 paintings.

He died in 1743, at the age fifty three, two years after marrying an eighteen year old.  This picture, while not explicit, has a joyous earthiness about it, as the man pulls up the girl's shift to reveal her plump bottom.  good kissing, too!

Two Women by Martin van Maële

Here is a juicily explicit painting by French illustrator Martin van Maële (1863-1926).  This illustration appeared in a 1910 edition of Un été à la campagne: correspondance de deux jeunes parisiennes  by  Gustave Droz (1832-1895), a French writer who was also, coincidentally, an illustrator whose work appeared in La Vie Parisienne.  

Van Maële was from Boulogne in France but worked in Paris and Brussels. He first became well known for doing the illustrations for the French edition of HG Wells' The First Men in the Moon in 1901 but it is his erotic illustrations for which he is best known today.  We will have more of his work in due course.

I Modi 1: Angélique et Médor after Agostino Carracci and Giulio Romano

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.

Ménage à trois by French School

Here is a lady entertaining two gentleman or two gentlemen entertaining a lady, depending on your viewpoint, in an anonymous painting of the French School from the eighteenth century.  While being taken from the rear the lady contemplates the other man's erection.  The scene, especially given the man on the right's posture, is rather languid and gives the impression of the enjoyment of some hours of ongoing frolics, rather than a single frantic scene.  He is holding what looks like a pearl necklace.  Is it a gift, a reward or a payment?

Following the death of Louis XIV in 1715, France (or at least Paris - Louis XIV's palace of Versailles was closed down for a number of years ), under the regency of the Duc d'Orléans and then Louis XV, saw a period of libertarianism embodied by the rocaille style of art as practised by Watteau and Boucher.  There were less pompous historical scenes than in the previous baroque style and more frivolous subjects and nudes.

A graphic, fully-rendered, erotic painting such as this was unusual, with most sexual pictures being confined to engravings and drawings.  The artist doesn't have the talent of a Watteau, Boucher or, later, Fragonard but it is a nicely composed scene of  the sort of sexual frolic that the period became notorious for.

Lesbian Lovers by Paul Avril

 Here is a rather sweet illustration, from French artist Paul Avril, of two young ladies enjoying each other's company.  Perhaps they are scared of the stormy weather, given there is a rather violent flash of lightning and an ominous looking sky outside, and are comforting each other.  Beautiful work on the drapery.

Avril was born Édouard-Henri Avril in Algiers in 1849. He studied at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris in the eighteen seventies.  He illustrated both conventional novels and what the French called galante literature which were privately published erotic novels.  He died in 1928.

This example comes from a 1909 edition of just 310 copies of the 1741 novel Histoire du Saturnin Portier du Chartreux by Gervaise de Latouche, which is a story about illicit love between monks and nuns.  According to the original caption, the lady on the right  is feeling "her pleasure mount by degrees".

Avril was one of the greatest erotic illustrators of all time and I will feature more of his work soon.

The two friends by Manuel Robbe

We have just posted some gently sensual images by French painter and printmaker, Manuel Robbe (1872-1936), over on our Venus Observations blog.  Here are a couple more overtly erotic works by him. Both called Les deux amies they are quite explicit illustrations of lesbians.  In the top picture one girl caresses her friend's sex while she looks at the viewer making him (or her) a voyeur to the scene.  The blurring around the girl on the right's hand may well be a deliberate attempt to suggest frantic movement.

The second picture has the first one kissing her friend's groin.  Both are very nice illustrations although the bottom one is more finished and lacks the loose spontaneity of the top one.  The girls in this one seem to be getting through quite a lot of Champagne!

The Innocent Nymph or Le Retour du Poilu by Georges Léonnec

This illustration appeared in French magazine La Vie Parisienne after the end of the Great War, in May 1919.  It shows the God Pan playing his pipes to an imploring nymph.  Poilu means hairy one, which can well apply to Pan but was also the nickname of French infantry troops during the war.  Looking a bit more closely, you can see the folded horizon bleu uniform and characteristic French Adrian helmet. The Nymph is saying, in the text which was under the picture,  "Play me, I beg you, a tango tune!" Does the fact that she is dubbed 'an innocent nymph' say anything about the fate of young girls welcoming back their now battle-worn men?  Transformed, perhaps into something rather different to that which they were when they left home.  Something dangerous and less gentlemanly to innocent young women...

Georges Léonnec (1881-1940) served in the war himself before returning to Paris to illustrate magazines like La Vie Parisienne, Le Sourire and Fantasio.

Lovers by Jean-François Millet

Pair of lovers

 In some ways it is something of a surprise to discover that the French realist painter Jean-François Millet (1814-1874) produced erotic works. His pictures of peasants toiling in the landscape are far from the passion exhibited in the two drawings here but, then again, if he saw sex as a natural part, and perhaps a brief escape from, the hard life of the peasant (such as his parents) then perhaps it is not such a surprise after all. The pencil drawing above, which is the the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest is a passionate depiction of rear entry sex which may be designed to echo the ways of the animals in the fields over which Millet walked, collecting material for his paintings. The girl has a wonderfully ecstatic expression and her arm disappears between her legs, surely reaching for her lover's member. 

Nymph and satyr 

This is another pencil drawing showing a nymph performing fellatio on a goat legged satyr or even, as some would have it, the devil. One of Millet's friends was Honoré Daumier whose ability to draw figures was much admired by Millet who copied his approach to figure work. Daumier produced his own erotic works and it would be interesting to know if the two artists shared their erotic works with each other.

Les Deux Amies by Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée

We recently posted a nicely sensual painting by the French painter Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée.  Here, however, is something which is much more blatantly erotic.

The Two Friends depicts two women lying in bed, their legs arranged in the scissors position of tribades.  In  fact, our friend S from Vancouver says that this position is now not approved of by lesbian fundamentalists, who argue that it is a position borne of male fantasy.  If so, it is an old fantasy as there are many pictures depicting women in this position which have been produced in the past centuries. 

The blonde sprawls in ecstasy, legs spread, while the brunette strokes her arm with her toes.  Lagrenée's couple are not actually depicted in the act but the position is hugely suggestive and the hint of the blonde's pubic hair shows that this picture, which is unlike anything else in Lagrenée's oeuvre, was painted either for himself or, more likely, a private collector.  

It was sold to another private collector at Christies in 1997 for $115,000; more than twice the estimate.

Mars and Venus: allegory of peace by Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée

This was, originally, our 100th post in the old incarnation of the Seduction of and I liked the painting so much that I made it the blog's header.  So it is only right, in the new Seduction of Venus, that it becomes the first post.

This is a gently seductive piece by French painter Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée (1724-1805).  Painted in 1770, it shows Mars and Venus, rather racily for the time, in bed together.  No doubt the use of the word "allegory" in the title helped to make this more acceptable.  The whole atmosphere of the picture is determinedly post-coital and Lagrenée has Mars pushing aside the (beautifully rendered) drapes around the bed to reveal the naked hidden treasure within. Your eye is immediately drawn to Venus' pale body; her skin painted in much lighter tones than Mars'.  Venus has tamed Mars, as his abandoned sword and helmet attest, through love (or, perhaps, sex).

Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée

Lagrenée won the Prix de Rome at the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1749 and went to Rome to study under Carle van Loo, a Rococo rival of Boucher and teacher of Fragonard as well.  He was received into the Académie in 1755 and from 1760 until 1762, he directed the Saint Petersburg Academy at the Russian court. When he returned to France he became a professor at the French Académie and although he painted some large official commissions, it was generally his smaller works which were better received and more popular with collectors.  This painting, for example, which now hangs in the J. Paul Getty museum in Los Angeles, is a comparatively modest 40 inches by 30 inches in size.