Curriculum Materials: Amazing Animals in
Art
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Image 8 Christophe-Ferdinand Caron Essays: Questions: |
Teacups
These cups belong to a tea service that was a gift from the emperor Napoleon to Prince William of Prussia. The service was ordered in 1807, the year following Napoleon's defeat of Prussia in his imperial campaigns. Each of the 12 cups and saucers and 4 serving pieces is richly adorned with scenes derived from the famous fables of the French writer Jean de la Fontaine.
La Fontaine, who lived from 1621 to 1695, was a popular French poet and FABULIST whose fables have enchanted generations of children and adults. His poetic interpretations were based on fables that had proven their vitality in popular tradition. La Fontaine frequently drew upon the Greek author Aesop, whose legendary fables about clever, foolish, greedy, and generous animals have been a source of inspiration to artists and writers for centuries. The subjects portrayed on this tea service reflect not only the popularity of La Fontaine's fables, but also the interest in motifs from nature that occurred during the 18th and 19th centuries.
The images depicted on these cups are based on episodes from "The Fox and the Stork." In this fable, Mr. Fox invites Miss Stork to dinner and serves clear soup in dishes so shallow that the stork, with her long beak, is unable to sip even a drop. Alas, after watching her host lap up his dinner, she goes home still hungry. In the next scene, Miss Stork invites Mr. Fox to dinner and serves a thick soup in tall vessels with a long narrow neck. The stork can now eat with ease, inserting her beak in the jar, while the fox, unable to reach his food and feeling weak with hunger, can only stand and watch. Reminding the fox that she simply followed his example, the fable ends with a moral lesson: treat others as you would like to be treated yourself.
The artist Christophe-Ferdinand Caron illustrates the fable's two main sequences on separate cups. Though his images do not have the text to support them, Caron clearly portrays the essence of the story, using naturalistic detail and dramatic gestures and imbuing his animals with a sense of mischief and personality. In the first scene, the fox eagerly laps up his soup from the gold dish on the ground, while the stork stands by intently observing him. She stands erect with wide-open wings and prancing, fluttering movement. Her body language suggests her outrage at the fox's rude indulgence as well as her own feelings of hunger and frustration. The tables are, turned, however, on the second cup, where the stork savors the meal with her long beak nestled deep into the tall blue vessel. Contrasting with her animated posture in the first scene, her contentment and pleasure are now apparent. But the fox appears distressed and forlorn, cowering toward the ground, his tail tucked beneath him.
Though Caron is concerned with a realistic portrayal of the animals' physical features, he reveals their behavior to be more like humans than like animals. Caron portrays the fox and the stork with careful attention to anatomical detail, showing the heavy build of the stork, its bright red bill and legs, its broad wings and long neck, and its boldly patterned plumage of black and white. He also renders the fox's long, sharp snout, its pointed ears, and its bushy tail. Nonetheless, there is a fairytale quality to the scene, partially due to its SCALE, reminding one of toylike miniatures. Moreover, the animals are engaged in the human activity of dining together, indeed with utensils produced and used by humans.
By their very nature, fables use stereotypes to convey certain human characteristics; in this case the fox, which we associate with craft and cunning, is an appropriate deceitful and greedy character. The stork, which has the legendary reputation in Europe as the bringer of babies and symbol of good luck, fits the role of the innocent victim of the fox's wiles who behaves with intelligence to teach the fox a lesson. Suggesting both the foibles and the wisdom of the fox and the stork, Caron gives us a caricature of human beings and human behavior. Like the writers La Fontaine and Aesop, Caron portrays animals to delight, amuse, and teach a moral lesson, as well as to decorate this luxury tea service with picturesque charm.
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