Pair Of Amusing 18th-century Engravings

A pair of 18th-century scatological engravings, "The Perfumer" and "The Two Fountains," inspired by Flemish art, given the mill and the depiction of field work, even though the name of the Charente commune is included. A beautiful frame has been painted around the amusing engraving.
The tightening of social conventions from the 16th century onward had a corollary in art: a narrowing of the definition of beauty. The ignoble and the unpleasant were excluded from painting, just as bad manners were excluded from courts and salons. While this observation holds true in principle for Latin Europe, it applies much less to northern countries. In Flanders, and to a lesser extent in the Dutch Republic, during the 17th century, the permissible behavior in society seems greater, and the range of subjects addressed by painters is less constrained by the imperative of the beautiful subject. A simple examination of a few Dutch paintings is enough to convince us of this.