![[ROCHEGROSSE, Georges-Antoine (1859-1938).] Les Paillardises et Joyeulsetez aulx Temps Passés, a series of 6 mounted illuminated mock-medieval erotic vignettes on card, [Paris, c.1920?].](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2014/CKS/2014_CKS_10773_0170_001(rochegrosse_georges-antoine_les_paillardises_et_joyeulsetez_aulx_temps014733).jpg?w=1)
![[ROCHEGROSSE, Georges-Antoine (1859-1938).] Les Paillardises et Joyeulsetez aulx Temps Passés, a series of 6 mounted illuminated mock-medieval erotic vignettes on card, [Paris, c.1920?].](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2014/CKS/2014_CKS_10773_0170_002(rochegrosse_georges-antoine_les_paillardises_et_joyeulsetez_aulx_temps014842).jpg?w=1)
![[ROCHEGROSSE, Georges-Antoine (1859-1938).] Les Paillardises et Joyeulsetez aulx Temps Passés, a series of 6 mounted illuminated mock-medieval erotic vignettes on card, [Paris, c.1920?].](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2014/CKS/2014_CKS_10773_0170_000(rochegrosse_georges-antoine_les_paillardises_et_joyeulsetez_aulx_temps011453).jpg?w=1)
Details
[ROCHEGROSSE, Georges-Antoine (1859-1938).] Les Paillardises et Joyeulsetez aulx Temps Passés, a series of 6 mounted illuminated mock-medieval erotic vignettes on card, [Paris, c.1920?].
Folio (306 x 230 mm). 12 leaves (6 blank). Each vignette within rich, elaborate foliate and architectural borders of vivid reds, pinks, greens, purples and blues, two inhabited by dragons and one with jousting knights, tapestries and a part-view of a turreted castle, all with accompanying mock-gothic text in Old French (gold card mounts occasionally detached). Modern green morocco gilt.
The vignettes depict scenes of bawdy, drunken sex, prostitution and adultery, all rendered in a bright, garish Art Deco palette. The characters - from the unfortunate daughters of Eustache Landry 'estouppées nuyct et jour' by their drunken captors to the promiscuously lonely ('seulettes en leur Castel') wife and sister of the aptly named 'sire de Montcornuz' - are all in contemporary 'medieval' garb (when in any garb at all). A playful catalogue of past revelries, the present manuscript is stylistically very similar to another erotic manuscript attributed to Paul Avril (1843-1928), sold in our rooms, Bibliothèque Erotique Gerard Nordmann, 14-15 December 2006, lot 51. But the faces and postures (of the ruddy-cheeked inn keeper, for example, or the whooping booze-sodden bordello-goers) are exaggerated and almost cartoonish, somewhat less subtle than Avril's hyper-realistic creations. A pencil inscription on f.3v indicates that Georges-Antoine Rochegrosse may be the artist, and this is certainly plausible: the framing and rendering of certain scenes is reminiscent of Rochegrosse's illustration of a 1910 Louis Conard edition of Petronius' Satyricon.
Folio (306 x 230 mm). 12 leaves (6 blank). Each vignette within rich, elaborate foliate and architectural borders of vivid reds, pinks, greens, purples and blues, two inhabited by dragons and one with jousting knights, tapestries and a part-view of a turreted castle, all with accompanying mock-gothic text in Old French (gold card mounts occasionally detached). Modern green morocco gilt.
The vignettes depict scenes of bawdy, drunken sex, prostitution and adultery, all rendered in a bright, garish Art Deco palette. The characters - from the unfortunate daughters of Eustache Landry 'estouppées nuyct et jour' by their drunken captors to the promiscuously lonely ('seulettes en leur Castel') wife and sister of the aptly named 'sire de Montcornuz' - are all in contemporary 'medieval' garb (when in any garb at all). A playful catalogue of past revelries, the present manuscript is stylistically very similar to another erotic manuscript attributed to Paul Avril (1843-1928), sold in our rooms, Bibliothèque Erotique Gerard Nordmann, 14-15 December 2006, lot 51. But the faces and postures (of the ruddy-cheeked inn keeper, for example, or the whooping booze-sodden bordello-goers) are exaggerated and almost cartoonish, somewhat less subtle than Avril's hyper-realistic creations. A pencil inscription on f.3v indicates that Georges-Antoine Rochegrosse may be the artist, and this is certainly plausible: the framing and rendering of certain scenes is reminiscent of Rochegrosse's illustration of a 1910 Louis Conard edition of Petronius' Satyricon.
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