Enigmes Joyeuses pour les Bons Esprits, Plate 7

Jan van Haelbeeck

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Seventh 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, standing on a piece of wool held by two wooden scaffolds, which he saws with the help of a woman who stands of the floor beneath him, in front of a town, the church of which can be seen in the back. The plate accompanies one of the sonnets of the Enigmes, which describes the nature of the activity, in which the man and woman move the saw up and down to cut the wool, while also hinting to another, slightly more erotic activity. 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