PRINT Le Pot De Terre Et Le Pot De Fer - 1755 - La Fontaine's Fables - Pre Revolution France - French Literature - Real French Country Style

Treasures from The Literature Collection at The Willing Mind. By exclusive arrangement with The Grand Review.

Print size 18 x 24, and consciously formatted to work with a standard size store bought frame, or custom framed as you see fit.

Holey Moley!  I've gotta write a couple o' fables, QUICK, so I can add 'fabulist' to my resume.

17th century French fabulist and poet Jean de La Fontaine was one of the most influential and revered writers of the Age of Enlightenment.  La Fontaine's FABLES and the stories and phrases and morals therein are so much a part of the common currency of French language and culture that most people do not pause to consider their source.  The work is ubiquitous and with a ripple effect beyond Europe and into the vernacular of popular American English, though again the source of much of those phrases and bits of folk wisdom are almost entirely unknown to us.

Open another window and Google Jean de La Fontaine.  You will be amazed.

Written in the 1660s, the Fables have been printed in a number of editions, both with and without illustration.  In the 1720s and over the next few decades, french painter Jean-Baptiste Oudry painted and drew his interpretations of all the images.  These in turn were redrawn in the 1750s to be engraved as illustrations in a breathtaking, oversized four volume set.  It was a very successful printing, and this particular set would have been found in the very best homes and libraries throughout Europe and the Americas.

As with nearly all large format illustrated books of the era, disbound images were available to be framed and hung on the walls of an even wider array of willing walls, and you will still find them at Sotheby's and Freeman's auctions and the like.

And so it was a decade ago that I was able to purchase both this and the accompanying print from the 1755 edition of La Fontaine's FABLES.  There were a small number of them in several lots, but this pair had me riveted to the floor, and I still smile every single time I see them.

Numerous happy clients have purchased both this and its companion piece in our collection,

THE SATYR AND TRAVELLER 

See the third and fourth image above for the the companion print.  They are sold separately. 

They certainly show beautifully together.  That said, just as many have fallen more deeply in love with one rather than the other, and have bought them as individual prints.

Below, the fable of The Earthen Pot and The Iron Pot

THE EARTHEN POT AND THE IRON POT
or
LE POT DE TERRE ET LE POT DE FER 

An iron pot proposed
To an earthen pot a journey.
The latter was opposed,
Expressing the concern he
Had felt about the danger
Of going out a ranger.
He thought the kitchen hearth
The safest place on earth
For one so very brittle.
"For you, who art a kettle,
And have a tougher skin,
There's nothing to keep you in."
"I'll be your body-guard,"
Replied the iron pot;
"If anything that's hard
Should threaten you a jot,
Between you I will go,
And save you from the blow."
This offer him persuaded.
The iron pot paraded
Himself as guard and guide
Close at his cousin's side.
Now, in their tripod way,
They hobble as they may;
And eke together bolt
At every little jolt,—
Which gives the crockery pain;
But presently his comrade hits
So hard, he dashes him to bits,
Before he can complain.

Take care that you associate
With equals only, lest your fate
Between these pots should find its mate.

SHIPPING
All prints are shipped in a sturdy mailing tube for $8, which covers postage, tube and S & H.

BUYING MORE THAN ONE PRINT?  Add a second print or any number thereafter of this or any other prints in our catalog and shipping is still just $8, total!!!

International shipping is available and reasonable. Please contact us for details.

A NOTE ON OUR PROCESS, OUR CHOICES AND THE QUALITY OF THE GRAPHIC CRAFTSMANSHIP THAT GOES INTO OUR PRINTS.

Every print we deem exciting enough to present to the public via our Etsy store or available here at our studio has gone through a number of steps.  The first of those is always discovering and falling in love with an obscure image, always an original that we can hold in our hands.  That image is speaking to us, sometime screaming “Don’t leave me here.  See what I am, what I was, what I can be, what I SHOULD be!”

There is a real sense of excitement involved, and a great many smiles and knowing grins when we make that deal and bring that ancient print, that battered photo, that scrap of ephemera that contains some scrap of genius from an unknown commercial artist home with us, knowing already how we mean to approach its restoration.

There is the heady promise of a further hunt just as real as what drags a weekend fisherman out of bed at 3AM to work a favorite brook as we start our research, looking for that great backstory, and both ready and willing to tumble down as many rabbit holes as are revealed to us to get that story.

Then there is a meticulous digital restoration that is as often as much fun as riding a vintage Moto Guzzi on a winding coastal road.  I don’t care if that sounds crazy, it really is like jumping in the saddle!  So many choices, so many chances to take to subtly or spectacularly give new life to otherwise permanently obscure images.

This dedication and the ongoing rush of joy in the accomplishment of it, and the opportunity to share the results in our studio and here on Etsy, is the fire of passion that keeps these engines roaring. We make every effort to ensure our customers are not just satisfied but thrilled, and we happily stand 100% behind our work.