Nymphaeum [The women’s bath] by Robert Boissard

Engraving, 228 x 175 mm. IFF p. 165, Le Blanc 4, Andresen 3.

Very fine impression printed on watermarked laid paper (watermark difficult to identify). In very good condition. A few small, barely visible creases, a small tear entering 10 mm inside the subject on the right edge.

Fine impression with small margins around the platemark, unlike the impression kept in the Bibliothèque nationale de France which is trimmed (218 x 171 mm).

Extremely rare.

Almost nothing is known about the life of Robert Boissard. His engraved work is dominated by a set of portraits and a series of Mascarades published in 1597.

Nymphaeum depicts a group of seven women in a public bath. The theme of women in the bath is a recurrent one in old prints: either the artist uses a mythological illustration as a pretext, as in Venus Bathing Attended by her Nymphs, engraved by Jean Mignon after Luca Penni (Jenkins 34), or he treats the subject realistically, as in Three women in the bath-house by Bartel Beham (New Hollstein 49). These prints often contain erotic details. Here, the wick trimmer in a niche explicitly evokes a male sex.