Wooden Shoes. 1784. Etching

One of the favourite motifs of the Rococo era is a pair of lovers in a rustic, beautiful and pristine environment. Although everything in these pictures seems to be decorous and the young people only seem to enjoying each other’s company, there are references to what is soon to happen. Sometimes these references are comprised of a chicken running away from a rooster, which allows the work to be titled A Dangerous Example. At other times, the theme is “A Dangerous Nap,” in which the young woman is pretending to nap and the young man standing next to her is awakening her with a straw.
In the etching, the young couple are eating cherries and already so close to each other that the “danger” is obvious. The wooden shoes that the maiden has removed allude to the fact that she will soon remove other garments as well.

Jacques Couché (1750 ‒ before 1836) was a French graphic artist who worked in Paris and primarily created reproduction prints and book illustrations.
Niklas Lafrensen (Nicolas Lavreince, 1737‒1808), who created the painting on which the etching was based, was a Swedish painter and miniature painter who worked in Stockholm and Paris.