Le canapé (The Sofa) is an amusing eighteenth century libertine story attributed to the writer and traveller Louis-Charles Fougeret de Monbron (1706–71) from Picardy, who drew on his bohemian travels throughout Europe for his best-known work, Le Cosmopolite ou le citoyen du monde (The Cosmopolitan or The Citizen of the World, 1750).

The subject of Le canapé, which was the author’s first work and published in 1741, is an adventurous knight who, unable to respond to the amorous desires of the ugly fairy Crapaudine, finds himself transformed into a sofa. As this piece of furniture, on which various intimate encounters occur, he becomes a willing witness to the antics of the various participants.

For this series of trademark etchings, Bécat uses the wit of de Monbron’s text to the full with a sequence of imaginative encounters between the sofa and its various occupants.

This edition of Le canapé was published by Eryx, Paris, in a limited numbered edition of 488 copies.