Enigmes Joyeuses pour les Bons Esprits, Plate 1

Jan van Haelbeeck

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

First 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 17th-century style, sits on a wooden chair, spinning wool. She is inside a room with tiled floors, open windows and doors, with some shelves with plates and baskets with fruits, in front of an open stair. Finished rolls of wool are in a basket near her, and a cat and a dog play with spare rolls around her. The plate accompanies the first sonnet of the Enigmes, which hints to the double, slightly erotic, meanings of the images. The double meanings 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.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art