Artist with a devious mind

[matt62]

I posted the following a few days ago at the end of another poster's thread, but I'm sharing it again here in case it got missed by anyone who might have been interested:

I found this drawing a while back. As far as I know, it doesn't depict a confirmed historical incident, but I would love to know what inspired the artist to come up with it. Had he heard a rumour?

It is the work of the French erotic illustrator Martin van Maele (1863-1926). If you look him up, you will see that he had a very fevered and devious imagination. This drawing is one of its products. I don't know anything about it, but from the clothes that the characters are wearing it looks like it is set in the 16th century or thereabouts, and my idea is that it shows an imagined or rumoured scene from the upheavals in France during the Wars of Religion between Catholics and Protestants. Just guessing though. Another possibility is that I have got the era wrong and it is a scene from the Terror that followed the Revolution, in the 1790s.

http://36.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lhvp1p4GKy1qcf87so1_500.jpg

 

[CapturedDoll]

Nice! 🙂

 

[arachnid95]

Our dear friend Mister C.A.B. has it absolutely right: We Have Always Been There. XD

 

[matt62]

After a bit of searching on the internet, I have just discovered where the illustration is from. It comes from a book called "La Sorciere" (The Witch) by French author Jules Michelet, first published in 1862. The book was an attempt at a history of witchcraft in Europe, including the persecutions of the 15th-17th centuries. Martin van Maele did the illustrations for the 1911 edition, and the subject clearly fired his imagination.