Haria and her dogs (Denis Diderot, Les Bijoux indiscrets, 1748, fig. 4)
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Description
Haria is a wealthy widow from Banza who prefers her dogs to her lovers. Yet she decides to marry young Sindor, who is attracted by her fortune. The scene depicts Haria and Sindor's wedding night. Sindor is unable to get into Haria's bed to consummate the marriage. After expelling all the other dogs from the bed, he grabs Medor by the leg to try to dislodge him. But Medor resists:
"He annoyed Médor with his right hand. Médor, attentive to this movement, did not notice that of the left, and was taken by the collar" (folio, p. 143).
The engraver has superimposed on this scene of the bloody nuptials that of Zinzoline's death, defenestrated by Sindor. It all begins when "the doggy [...] bit the fat of her leg" (p. 141). The bed with its canopy is where the stage action takes place, Medor's interposition between Haria and Sindor. The cone of light that extends from the three candles on the far right wall to Haria's half-dressed body is the cone
.1. Top right reads "T.1 Pag.232"
.
3. Compare, for the theme here parodied and for the device, with Titian's Diana and Actaeon: the painting was in the eighteenth-century Palais-Royal gallery (see link).
Technical Data
Notice #001287
