Je joüe dévinement de la guiguit guiguit gui guitare
(I play divinely on my guiguit guiguit gui guitar)
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A man playing a guitar-like instrument sits on the back of a large fantastical bird with a long neck, which faces towards the left. The bird’s plumage is red, except for its white-tipped tail-feathers and green and white head and throat. Red and white feathers are clustered at the top of its head. A scallop-edged band, from which hangs a long tassel, encircles the base of its neck and its back is covered in an irregularly shaped cloth decorated with alternating bands of pink and white.
A rein runs from the bird’s beak to the man, who sits side-saddle on its back with his right leg crossed over his left. His body is angled towards the left and his face shown in profile. He wears a black mask with a small goatee. The flesh of his jaw line and ear are visible and he has shoulder-length grey hair. With his right hand, he strums the strings of an instrument, a guitar-like violin that he holds in left hand. It rests against his left shoulder. The instrument has a long black fingerboard with a hooked scroll.
The man is dressed in a pink and white striped tunic with blue sleeves. The cuff of his right sleeve is white with blue spots. His left cuff is loose and hangs down. A white pompom hangs from its lower edge. The tunic has a white collar and a blue scallop-edged trimming at the waist. He wears yellow trousers and pale green shoes. A short cape, also pale green, flows out to his right. His hat has a yellow brim which forks at the front, and is decorated with two feathers. It has a tall pink crown.
Curatorial commentary
- The masked figure playing a musical instrument while mounted on a strange beast is mirrored in the paired drawing on the opposite page. (675.69) Musicians riding on fantastical creatures are also represented in a number of the surrounding drawings (e.g. 675.63, 675.66, 675.67, 675.69).
- This drawing is in Style A, attributed to the principal author of the “Livre de Caricatures”, Charles-Germain de Saint-Aubin. Style A displays a childish and naïve aesthetic and sometimes subject matter, and is characterised by crispness of execution, clear outlines and smooth application of colour. It is dominant in the early part of the book, from 675.3 to around 675.160. The opening inscription (675.1a) claims that the book was acquired from booksellers on the Paris quays in 1740 already containing drawings in another hand. The inscription states that ‘my friends put captions [underneath the drawings] and got me to continue this miscellany of follies’ (“mes amis y mirent des légendes et m’engagerent à continuer ce melange de folies”). This may be a tall story, explicable by Charles-Germain’s reluctance to admit authorship of the work. Charles-Germain was a versatile artist, and the possibility that he was responsible for the entire process in these initial drawings cannot be ruled out. In the drawings in the book not in Style A, Charles-Germain first made graphite sketches in much the same way. However it is possible that in the sections of the book dominated by Style A, Charles-Germain confined himself to working up existing graphite drawings, as well as adding details and also, with his friends’ assistance as he describes, the captions.
Dimensions (mm) / weight (mg)
187 x 132
Inscriptions
Je joüe divinement de la guiguit guiguit gui guitare
Inscription
Inscribed by Charles-Germain de Saint-Aubin, below image, in ink
68
Pagination
Top left corner, in ink
Translation of inscription
I play divinely on my guiguit guiguit gui guitar
Underdrawing
Underdrawing, around and to the right of figure and bird, in graphite; the scroll of the instrument stretched further to the right, there were three feathers sprouting from the top of the bird's head, and other drawings, now indecipherable, were added to the far right of the page.
Language
French
Part of
- Livre de Caricatures tant bonnes que mauvaises. 675.1-389
Collection
- Waddesdon (National Trust)
- Bequest of James de Rothschild, 1957
Bibliography
- Katie Scott; Saint-Aubin's jokes and their relation to...; Colin Jones, Juliet Carey, Emily Richardson, The Saint-Aubin Livre de caricatures: drawing satire in eighteenth-century Paris, Oxford, SVEC, 2012; 349-403; pp. 374, 381n, 388, fig. 16.9