La nuit et le moment, ou les matines de Cythere (The Night and the Right Time, or the mornings of Cythera) is by the eighteenth-century writer Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon. In this witty 1755 dialogue the questioning Clitandre comes to Cidalise’s chamber to discuss his relationship problems with her; she is surprised by his arrival, but quickly warms to the subject as she is having similar issues of her own. Thus in the course of one night, a man and a woman, each in love with somebody else, gradually warm to each other until they forget past pleasures in present passions. Satire, irony, word play and scandal abound.

Mario Prassinos’s suite of illustrations for La nuit et le moment are a fairly late and safe commission, demonstrating his ability to illustrate a narrative a well as producing drawings from his own imagination.

La nuit et le moment was published by Éditions de la Vieille France in their ‘Les Petits Maitres Érotiques’ collection. It was produced in a limited numbered edition of 900 copies.