Children and Satyr: two Artcurial auctions in Paris

24/3/26 - Art market - Paris - A dromedary with silky hair has found its way into Artcurial’s sale on 25 March, drawn by Jean-Pierre Houël ; fascinated by exotic animals, he studied them at the Jardin des Plantes and devoted a book to them in 1803. Slightly more bald, far less lively, a poor chicken has ended up completely plucked, at the end of a fork and beneath the pencil of Jean-François Tourcaty. The sheet is preparatory for an engraved plate illustrating the Manuel des amphitryons published in Paris in 1808, which contains, let it be known, A treatise on the carving of meats at table, the nomenclature of the newest Menus for each season but also - what could be more fundamental? - elements of gastronomic politeness ; in other words, here is a Work indispensable to all those who are jealous of dining well, and of having others do so too.

There are animals, and then there are men who play at being beasts. One keeps his face hidden behind a satyr mask, in a drawing by Parmigianino executed during the last period of his career, after his return to Parma in 1530 (ill. 1). The mask was also the accessory of the characters of the Commedia dell arte, but Thomas Couture’s Harlequin, in the nineteenth century, has lost his carefree air : he exhausts himself defending, before drowsy judges, his friend Pierrot accused of having stolen a few victuals. The drawing is preparatory for a painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art, Pierrot before the Criminal Court, in which the painter castigates the judicial system.