Judging the Paintings: The Laundress, Greuze by Janice D. Soderling

The Laundress, by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1761.

Judging the Paintings: The Laundress, Greuze

This little laundress is charming, but she's a rascal I wouldn't trust an inch.
– Denis Diderot’s response at the Salon of 1761

What they see is what they hope to bed,
not the maiden, but the maidenhead:
the milliner, the factory girl, laundress,
rascals all but ready to acquiesce
to gentlemen of taste, to men well-bred.

Just so this laundress—fingers chapped and red--
would be a naughty romp for spirited
old roués. They fantasize they might possess
what they see.

Something quickens that lay lately dead
between their withering thighs. She lies outspread
and pert, this working girl, this sorceress.
They rascally remove her cumbrous dress
as voyeurs do. Then gleams, without a thread,
what they see.

Janice D. Soderling

Janice D. Soderling has published hundreds of poems, short stories and translations in international journals including Rattle, Literary Bohemian, Rotary Dial, Ghazal Page, Wasafiri. Work is forthcoming at Modern Poetry in Translation and in The Great American Wise Ass Poetry Anthology published by Lamar University Press.