Cover

Joues Cramoisies by Carlo

Joues Cramoisies (1935) translates into English as “Crimson Cheeks” and that is exactly what this portfolio of illustrations is about. The whip, the tawse and hand spanking are used in the highlands of Scotland.

‘It was during a very recent trip to Scotland that Désiré van Rowel, a tireless globetrotter of passionate indiscretion, got to know Mrs Magpie, private housekeeper to a notorious Laird. The housekeeper’s revealing memoirs as a great lover of the whip were written during her initiation with the Scottish tawse. Her collaboration with the Laird and his entourage of initiates is clear, and it was not without blushing that Mrs Magpie entrusts to her confidant the scathing memories of her youth under a regime with such strict rules, and how she learned to administer those same methods herself.’

Carlo, despite his popularity at the time, is nearly entirely anonymous. There was an illustrator using the name ‘Charléno’ that had some output in French humor magazines in the 1920s. The styles are very similar and so it is possible they were one and the same artist. Beyond that is entirely an enigma. It has even been suggested that there were several artists creating illustrations to a sort of stylistic formula. We’ll likely never know.

Joues Cramoisies is a portfolio of twelve illustrations.

Illustrations