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View Image(s): Chantilly, 1773, Compare
Image Metadata:
Image Description:
The song La valeur d’un baiser [the value of a kiss] and its accompanying print, recall the popular theme of courtly games of love. The print illustrates the moment prior to the lascivious desertion of courtly etiquette. A younger courtier is shown advancing upon a noblewoman, his hands lustfully reach over her, as she half-heartedly pushes him away. The courtiers are wearing fashionable clothes of the late-eighteenth century French court. The gentleman is dressed in a justaucorps (the long knee-length coat), a jabot (the lace cravat), and culottes. He is wearing a stylish bagwig. The lady wears a robe à la française decorated lavishly with lace; one arm extends outwards holding a fan that threatens to be unfurled to conceal her blush, in alignment with proper court decorum. The legend beneath the print quotes, “si vous sçaviés comme un baiser est doux / sans balancer vous m’en donneriés mille.” [“If you knew how sweet a kiss is / you would give me a thousand without turning away”].
A statue of cupid stands in a contrapposto position on top of a rusticated plinth entangled with creeping hedera vines. Cupid’s shadow looms over the enamoured courtiers, as he slowly raises his finger to his lips in a recollection of Étienne-Maurice Falconet’s Seated Cupid (1757); a renowned sculpture commissioned by Louis XV’s official mistress, Madame de Pompadour. Cupid’s gesture calls for silent secrecy in an evocation of illicit happenings. Antithetically, Cupid also holds a conch shell in his left hand; an instrument often blown loudly as a sounding of horns. But that shell is also an erotic symbol of a woman’s sex. The engraver François Denis Née (1732-1817) has brought time to a standstill, tension fills the air as the audience comes to understand that the woman is at the axis of either maintaining courtly morality or recklessly abandoning propriety. The conch shell, hidden from her line of sight, appears as a warning against the consequences of choosing the latter.
The scene is set within a terrace in a French formal garden. The background features a palace decorated with an engaged iconic colonnade, similar in design to the Grand Trianon at Versailles. Corresponding to the columns, the balustrade is adorned with classically-themed sculptures of Greco-Roman feminine deities. The deities gaze down, carefully observing the enamoured courtiers; once again insinuating the possibility of a public reckoning and discovery of the illicit affair.
The controlled and classicised nature of the terrace contrasts against the foreground, where the courtiers are situated. Here, nature is lush, overgrown, and almost untamed. The garden scene follows the shift in tastes that occurred after the reign of Louis XIV. It had become fashionable to allow nature to spill beyond the controlling geometric lines of André Le Nôtre. It reflects the taste for pastoral, romantic, arcadian landscapes in which nature slowly entangled and reclaimed civilised spaces of the late eighteenth century. The controlled landscape of the terrace in the background symbolises the regulation of courtly life. The courtiers have, however, moved further down into untamed nature as they follow their lustful desires. Although not quite a pastoral meadow, the courtiers’ placement recalls the following line from the poem “…je vais au fond d’un boccage / Chercher un instant le repôs” [“…I go to the bottom of a hedgerow/ Looking for a moment of rest.] The courtiers wish to escape the restraints of courtly life, and as such nature acts as an allegory for their liberation.
Catherine Purnell, 2021.
Plate Signature: “Le Barbier inv. / D Née Sc.”
Artist: “Lebarbier, Jean Jacques François”
Engraver: “Née, François Denis”
Year:
Inscription: “Si vous sçaviés comme un baiser est doux, / Sans balancer vous m’en donneriés mille.”
Keywords: couples, lovers Malva sylvestris,Hedera (genus), gardens (open spaces), day (time of day), exterior, upper class, court dress, courtship, bagwigs, trellises, arches,urns, fountains, sculpture (visual works), terraces (landscaped-site elements), stairs, fans (costume accessories),pilasters, pot plants, Rosa (genus), Cupid (Roman deity),Ionic order naked female body, Populus (genus), balustrades, sky, clouds
Texts which refer to this image:
Other works of art quoted in this image: Falconet, Étienne-Maurice, L’Amour Menaçant, 1757. Mauritshius 906, http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.25449.
General Metadata:
Group Page Range: Vol. 3, 80-84
Title Page Inscription: “LA VALEUR / D’UN / BAISER”
Published Notes:
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View Score(s): 1773
Song 1 recording: Pour un basier que j’exige de vous
Song 2 recording: Loin de l’objet de ma tendrésse
Credit: Paul McMahon, tenor
Amy Moore, soprano
Erin Helyard, harpsichord (French double by Carey Beebe after Blanchet, 1991)
Temperament: Jean-Henri Lambert, 1774, A:392
Song 1 diction recording:
Song 2 diction recording:
Credit: Eighteenth-century diction prepared and declaimed by Linda Barcan with the assistance of Erin Helyard and Veronique Duche
Music Metadata:
Song 1 Description:
Song 1 Composer: [Laborde, Jean-Benjamin de]
Song 1 Key Signature: Eb
Song 1 Time Signature: 3
Song 1 Expression Marks: Andantino
Song 1 Tessitura of Voice: bb-ab2
Song 1 Tessitura of Instrument: Eb-ab2
Song 1 Strophic: Non-strophic
Song 1 Related Compositions:
Song 2 Description:
Song 2 Composer: [Laborde, Jean-Benjamin de]
Song 2 Key Signature: d
Song 2 Time Signature: 3
Song 2 Expression Marks: Andantino
Song 2 Tessitura of Voice: d1-g2
Song 2 Tessitura of Instrument: A-e2
Song 2 Strophic: Strophic
Song 2 Related Compositions:
Read:
Song 1 Transcription:
Pour un baiser que j’exige de vous
faut-il Iris être si difficile
si vous scaviés comme un baiser est doux
sans balancer vous m’en donneriés mille
ma chere Iris ce langage charmant
est pour parler au cœur le moyen le plus tendre;
et l’on se dit ainsi dans un moment
ce qu’un an de discours feroit à peine entendre
ce qu’un an de discours feroit à peine entendre
ce qu’un an de discours feroit à peine entendre.
Song 2 Transcription:
I
Loin de l’objet de ma tendrésse
puis je gouter quelques plaisirs
mon cœur qu’occupe ses desirs
le cherche et croit le voir sans cesse
mais bientôt cette douce yvrésse
ne me laisse que mes soupirs.
II
Si je vais au fond d’un boccage
Chercher un instant le repôs,
Le chant des amoureux Oiseaux
En peignant l’amour qui m’engage
Ne m’offre que la triste image
De mes desirs et de mes maux.
III
Envain de la saison nouvelle
On me vante les agrémens;
L’affreux hyver glace mes sens;
Lorsque je suis loin de ma belle,
Mon cœur ne trouve qu’au près d’elle
Le charme et les dons du Printems.
IV
Chaque matin avant l’aurore
Je suis éveillé par l’amour;
Et la clarté par son retour
Rend mes maux plus cruels encore,
Loin de la beauté que j’adore,
Hélas! je déteste le jour.
Text Metadata:
Song 1 Text Description:
Song 1 Incipit: Pour un basier que j’exige de vous
Song 1 Author: “Laborde, Jean-Benjamin de”
Song 1 Text Keywords:
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Song 2 Text Description:
Song 2 Incipit: Loin de l’objet de ma tendrésse
Song 2 Author: Ménilglaise
Song 2 Keywords:
Sources that refer to song 2 text:
