Enigmes Joyeuses pour les Bons Esprits, Plate 4

Jan van Haelbeeck

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Fourth 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 working-class man, dressed with hat, jacket and boots, and wearing an apron tied around his waist, which holds a small knife, pushes a barrel inside a room with a door. Other barrels are lined up behind his back, on a path outlined by buildings, and a small picture of the virgin and child hangs from a bar attached to the walls of the room where the barrels are stored. The plate accompanies the fourth sonnet of the Enigmes, which describes the activities of the man subject of the picture, hinting to another, slightly more erotic meaning. This double meaning 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