'Il est defendu de fai ici des ordures sous peine de punition corporelle’

The subject of this canvas, 'It is forbidden to defecate here upon pain of corporal punishment', is taken from a proverb called Le Peintre en Cul-De-Sac by the French painter and playwright, Louis Carrogis, called Carmontelle (1717-1806). The son of a shoemaker, Carmontelle was a self-educated polymath, who initially studied as an engineer before entering the services of the Duke of Luynes. In 1758, he entered the services of the Duc of Orléans, where he was charged with the instruction of the Duc's eldest son, the Duc des Chartres, as well as the general entertainment of the Ducal family and their guests at the Chateaux of Saint-Cloud and Villiers-Cotteretts, where he staged comedic plays and shorter dramatized proverbs, so called because the audience was encouraged to take an active role in what was being played. The bawdy humor of his proverbs followed the in tradition of Rabelais and was a major influence on Carmontelle's contemporaries, including Voltaire.

A renewed interest in Carmontelle's work materialized in 1822 with the publication of M.C. de Mery's, ‘Proverbes Dramatiques de Carmontelle’, Paris, 1822, and the present subject relates to proverb XXVII in that work.