Marrin's Bookshop

Synopsis

The first appearance of a character named lustucru, a blacksmith turned brain surgeon or "operateur cephalique" first appeared in 1659. in this later print circa 1800, he appears at right in the central trio of blacksmiths, his mallet upraised over a woman's head, which he's gripping with a pair of tongs. other female heads swing from meat hooks, waiting their turn. in the left foreground, two men drag a still intact woman to the forge; the words near her mouth say,"i don't want to go there". the sign of the shop, hanging at upper left, displays a decapitated woman's body above the words "questo e tutto buono" meaning "a woman without a head: everything is good". to clarify their ghastly intent, the block of text encourages men to bring their difficult wives to this head doctor, where their brains will be reforged and purged of all screechy, angry, lunatic, obstinate, rebellious, willful, and lazy ways. any woman with a mind of her own is guaranteed a graphically brutal straightening out.

Item Description

38.5 x 29.5 cm..Good condition. trimmed close to plate mark. This is dark,very dark sexist satire. unsurprisingly the head-pounding blacksmith "became all the rage". Cheap copies, and versions of him in his forge spread from France to Germany and Italy.