‘Jean Jouy’ is another of those French illustrators from the 1930s and 40s who never actually existed except as a pseudonym who only produced one set of illustrations, in this case for an anthology of more or less classically-inspired erotica.

The style of the illustrations in this one-off portfolio are perhaps closest to the work of Schem (Raoul Serres) or Rojan (Feodor Rojankovsky), though why either of these popular illustrators would need to use another pseudonym is hard to imagine.

And why ‘Jean Jouy’? ‘J’en jouis’ in French means ‘I’m enjoying this’, from the verb ‘jouir’, to enjoy. Used sexually it also means ‘to come’, so ‘j’en jouis’ is one way of saying ‘I’m coming!’. Now you know.