Henri Lebasque, French
Young Girl Reading As Sister Helps Self To Liquor Cabinet, 1904
Oil on canvas
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THROWBACK THURSDAY: MASTERPIECE #1621 (1/19/17)
Info, or perhaps links that point to more info, about this artist can be found here, here (archived if necessary), here, here, here, here, here (can be read in full for free on Fridays), here, and here, perhaps in addition to what’s in his Wikipedia page (Google translated French Wikipedia page has more).
/// Lucie-Claire’s reading Under the Lamp,
while her sister, (the mischievous scamp),
looks for where Mama’s hidden
all the books she’d forbidden
them to see. Mama once was a tramp.
/// In those books, a girl takes many lovers,
and an air of debauchery hovers.
But, beyond moral flaws,
Mama banned them because
she had posed nude on all of the covers.
/// When their Mama was young she was wild,
then she married and had her first child.
Now she’d shelter both daughters
from the murkier waters
which get innocent youngsters defiled.
/// Unlike sis Aurélie over there,
“dirty” books don’t beguile Lucie-Claire.
Being “bad” brings no kicks;
studied Scripture since six.
She’s a prude who takes after her père.
/// As though under a weird witches’ curse,
in time both underwent a reverse
to their temperaments, which
caused their morals to switch.
Tramp to prude or vice versa— what’s worse?
/// With no Scripture remaining to delve,
pious Lucie-Claire’s still only twelve.
That’s when puberty hits
with its hormonal blitz,
and her Bibles she’ll evermore shelve.
/// No more reading there under the lamp,
turning pages until fingers cramp.
Soon she’ll sit with a boy
in the dark, acting coy,
while she practices being a vamp.
/// Aurélie, on the other hand, grew
to a woman too fond of strong brew.
She hit bottom one day
and was saved by AA,
now the twelve steps are what get her through.
/// Once a licentious party-girl, now her
goal is getting her “good side” to flower.
Her plan? Settling down
in a far away town
with the help of her new “higher power.”