Le curieux

Pierre Maleuvre after Pierre-Antoine Baudouin

National Gallery of Art

This print depicts two women in an elaborately decorated room, with a man looking through the window of a door on the left. In the center, one of the women sits on a bench, facing the left. She is wearing a bonnet and a voluminous dress. Her skirts have been pushed up to expose her legs and buttocks, with her legs stretched out on the couch. On the left, the other woman stands next to her. This woman has a lace bonnet over her hair and wears a similar dress with ruffles and voluminous skirts. She holds a large needle or syringe and is bending down towards the woman on the couch. A small dog stands by her feet, its legs propped up on the couch. Behind the standing woman is a doorway on the left with a window on the top. A man is peeking into the room, pushing the curtain of the window aside. The room is adorned with ornate wall decorations and decorative furniture such as a table on the right and a large mirror, and the floor is covered in a patterned rug. The print is surrounded by a border of off-white paper.