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Additional notes:
  This is not a modern print. This impression is more than 120 years old. The strike is crisp and the lines are sharp.

This fable is taken from Machiavelli's "favola (tale)" that was published under the name Giovanni Brevio in 1545. The story derives from Medieval Slavic folklore (and gave birth to a German and North-European version featuring a Friar Rush). In Machiavelli's account, Pluto notes that crowds of male souls arrive in Hell blaming their wives for their misery. He summons a parliament, which decides to send the former-archangel-now-archdevil Belfagor to the Earth to investigate.

Belfagor assumes a human form as one Roderigo of Castile, and comes to Florence with a hundred thousand ducats; he marries a woman named Onesta Donati. Soon, her vanity and wasteful spending, combined with the demands of her relatives, reduce him to poverty and debt. He flees imprisonment, pursued by creditors and magistrates; rescued by the peasant Gianmatteo, Belfagor grants his rescuer the power to drive devils out of possessed women – which eventually causes major problems for the peasant himself. In the end, Belfagor gratefully returns to Hell, denouncing the institution of marriage.

Jean de La Fontaine collected fables from a wide variety of sources, both Western and Eastern, and adapted them into French free verse. They were issued under the general title of Fables in several and are considered classics of French literature. Humorous, nuanced and ironical, they were originally aimed at adults but then entered the educational system and were required learning for school children.

 
Artist Biography:
   Born in Paris on March 17, 1686, Jean-Baptiste Oudry was the son of a minor painter and art dealer, Jacques Oudry (c. 1661-1720). Jean Baptiste Oudry was the preeminent animal painter of the first half of the 18th century.  Though his father was a painter and art dealer, Oudry's first serious training came from portrait painter Nicolas de Largillière. By about 1720, the young man was concentrating on animals, hunts, and landscapes. He became a member of the Académie de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1719 and a professor there in 1743.

In 1719 Oudry was elected to membership in the Académie royale. From the start of his career, he was attracted to the painting of flora and fauna in the manner of the Dutch animalier painters Frans Snyders (1579-1657), Jan Fyt (1611-1661), Jan Baptist Weenix (1621-1660/1661), Melchior d'Hondecoeter (1636-1695), and Abraham Hondius (c. 1625-1691), and he soon became a congenial rival to the older Alexandre François Desportes (1661-1743), who specialized in the same genres. He proved his mettle in such sumptuous performances as the decorative series of the Four Elements (Stockholm, Nationalmuseum) of 1719-1721 and the pendants Dead Wolf and Dead Roe (London, Wallace Collection) of 1721. These masterpieces were followed by several large hunt pictures, the most notable of which are the Wolf Hunt (Ansbach, Ansbach Residenz) and the Stag Hunt (Stockholm, Royal Palace). As the Académie royale held no exhibitions between 1704 and 1737, for a time Oudry showed his works at the only public venue available to him, the Exposition de la jeunesse, which was held on the Place Dauphine on the feast of Corpus Christi.

Oudry's favor at court was such that in March 1726 he exhibited the contents of his studio in the Grands Appartements at Versailles. From 1726 onward Oudry had great success designing tapestries.The greatest boost to Oudry's official career was provided by his patron, Henri Camille, the chevalier de Beringhen (NGA 1994.14.1), who introduced the painter to the young Louis XV, and he was soon made painter in ordinary of the royal hunts and granted a studio and lodgings for himself and his family in the Tuileries palace. Louis XV, king of France, often called Jean-Baptiste Oudry to Versailles to paint the royal hounds in the king's presence. "Monsieur Oudry had acquired such a habit of conversing with high-ranking persons and of working in their presence that he painted as calmly at the court as he would in his own studio," marveled a contemporary. In 1728 the royal arts administration commissioned him to paint a huge canvas representing Louis XV Hunting Deer in the Forest of Saint-Germain (originally hung in the main pavilion at Marly and today in the Musée des Augustins, Toulouse), which he completed in 1730.  In 1734 he was named director of the Beauvais tapestry manufactory, which he re-established by bringing in artists like François Boucher. Two years later, he became director of the Gobelins manufactory. Supervising all tapestry production gave Oudry considerable influence on French decorative arts. He also had a large studio and was literally overwhelmed by commissions. His clients included Czar Peter the Great of Russia and the queen of Sweden. Oudry's work was marked by attention to detail combined with freedom of execution. A master of chiaroscuro, he maintained a lifelong interest in light and reflections.

A consummate draftsman, Oudry executed a considerable body of highly finished presentation drawings and preparatory sketches, many of them the result of his direct observation of nature. Between 1725 and 1735 he produced illustrations for two literary masterpieces of the reign of Louis XIV, Le Roman Comique by Paul Scarron (1610-1660) and Les Fables of Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695).

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