Dennis & Aimee's Big Gay Paris Adventure

There's a painting in the Louvre that I saw on a magnet in the gift store. (I didn't see it in the museum when we were there, but that's not surprising -- it would take a week to go through the Louvre with even minimal thoroughness.) The painting is of two women, naked from the waist up. One is pinching the nipple of the other. The painting doesn't look sexual, per se... it's very matter of fact. Here, you can take a look for yourself if you like:

Gabrielle d'Estrées et une de des soeurs

It just so happens that my friend Mitzi, the twin of my other friend Josefa, is getting her PhD in Art History. Now, mind you, Mitzi is studying DUTCH art, and a subset of that, I'm sure. But, I had a feeling she'd know a bit about this thing, and I was really curious. With the help of Tricia, I found an email address for Mitzi that worked (the one I had bounced) and here's what she had to say:

It's an anonymous picture of one Gabrielle d'Estrees ( famous fashion-plate and mistress of Henry IV (one of several)) and one of her sisters (mmmaybe) in the bath. So right at the end of the 16th C.-- court of Fontainebleu, about 1595.

They had a taste for symbolism and allegory out there-- it's probably related to the birth of Gab and Hank's son (one "Caesar de Vendomme"). So short answer: court life. These guys are dogs. There was a long tradition of raunchy portraits of mistresses (lots in early 16th c Venice, and some in earlier 16th c France) and other raunchy pictures which developed (I think) out of Italian "cassone" paintings-- inside of the lids of dowry chests-- usually symbolically sexy, meant to get everyone fired up so a child would be more likely. A lot of fertility and sexiness imagery. Mix that tradition with a court tradition in which guys like to hang around looking at pictures (both the smutty kind and the heavily symbolic kind-- conversation pieces) and you get this. I don't know if there is "a meaning" agreed upon (or if there even originally had to have been one-- maybe it was just a 'puzzle piece'?)-- I have nothing on French art at home. Maybe this helps? So in short: the French monarchs are just wrong. Something in between fertility-concerns and smut. Which, if you're a monarch, is probably all the same thing in the end.

So, there you have it. I like that story way better than any of the half-baked, dry, "let's try to be symbolic" answers I found on the web.

--Aimee