Le lion, le signe et les deaux ânes

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Artist: Jean-Baptiste Oudry (French, 1686–1755)
Medium: Point of the brush and gray wash and black ink, heightened with white, on blue paper, within a painted mount
Size: 9 5/8 × 7 1/4 in. (24.45 × 18.42 cm) (image); 11 3/4 × 9 11/16 in. (29.85 × 24.61 cm) (sight)
Museum: Minneapolis Institute of Art
Rights: Public Domain Mark

This is an illustration to a Fable written as a poem in the 1600s. The King of Beasts encounters a monkey, cast as the wise counselor. The lion asks the monkey to explain how, as a leader, he can avoid self-aggrandizement. The monkey responds by telling a story of two donkeys in conversation, who excessively congratulate each other, thus blinding themselves to their own faults. To instruct his majesty how his behavior ought to be, the monkey knows he must tread lightly, else he’d risk a fate unsightly.

The author of the fable, Jean de La Fontaine, built on a Latin expression asinus asinum fricat (the donkey rubs the donkey). The fable is one of hundreds written by La Fontaine, and they became standards of French literature. Jean-Baptiste Oudry loved them so much that he illustrated them in 276 whimsical drawings using brushes and ink on blue paper.

Text: Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia), CC BY 4.0.