Monsieur de Pourceaugnac

Dublin Core

Title

Monsieur de Pourceaugnac

Subject

Social satire, Medicine in art

Description

Rabelais helped to establish a French tradition for satirizing the medical profession that continued for generations in various artistic genres. The razor-witted Montaigne (1533-1592) once quipped, “And how many have not escaped dying, who have had three physicians always at their tails?” Molière (1622-1673), the master of French farce, relied on lampooned medicine as a comedic strategy for several plays, including the famous Le malade imaginare, in which a wealthy hypochondriac is enabled by sycophantic doctors. This engraving illustrates a scene from Molière’s Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, in which two mercenary physicians take Monsieur’s pulse to convince him he is sick, while an assistant prepares a clyster syringe, a common device of early modern scatalogical humor.

Creator

François Joullain (1697-1778), after Charles-Antoine Coypel (1694-1752)

Source

[no text]

Publisher

Louis Surugue (1686 c. - 1762)

Date

1726

Contributor

Debra Cashion, in collaboration with Elisabeth Barrett, '15

Format

Engraving; original dimensions, 258 x 322 mm

Language

[no text]

Type

Still image

Identifier

[no text]

Coverage

[no text]

Files

Pourceaugnac_Moliere.jpg

Collection

Citation

François Joullain (1697-1778), after Charles-Antoine Coypel (1694-1752) , “Monsieur de Pourceaugnac,” The Anatomist: Early Modern Medical Satire, accessed March 28, 2024, https://anatomist.omeka.net/items/show/11.