This unrecorded suite of twelve monochrome etchings with remarques represents Courbouleix at his most uninhibited and inventive. Issued privately from his Montrouge press in the mid-1930s, and known from a single complete set found loosely inserted in a copy of the 1928 Zoloé, the portfolio ranges freely across the erotic register, from tender intimate encounters to raucous group scenes, from classical allegory to surrealist still life, with Priapus himself enthroned at the centre of one magnificent chaotic composition surrounded by admiring artists and muses.

The style is looser and more gestural than his celebrated late-1920s colour suites, the ink wash bolder, the line more confident and free, closer in spirit to the illustrated Suzon memoirs than to the finely wrought aquatints of La Maison Philibert. The remarques at the bottom of each print, consistently figural and explicitly erotic, suggest a deluxe production aimed at a sophisticated collector audience.

The title Plaisirs divers is our own, acknowledging both the thematic breadth of the suite and the laconic descriptive wit that characterises Courbouleix’s own titling of his chez l'artiste productions. The true title, if one exists, remains to be established.