André-Robert Andréa de Nerciat, best known for his novel Le diable au corps (The Devil Incarnate) and the erotic memoir Les Aphrodites, was the son of a Burgundian royal official, who retired from the military in 1775 to concentrate on writing plays, verse, light music and pornographic novels. He worked as a secret agent of the French government across Europe, and may also have worked as a double agent, as he was arrested by the French when they invaded Naples in 1798. Le doctorat impromptu (The Impromptu Doctorate) is an epistolary novel published in 1788, consisting of fictional letters between the convent-fleeing nun Erosie and her confidante Juliet as Erosie explores a variety of new-found pleasures of the flesh.

Le doctorat impromptu, previously illustrated by André Collot, which you can see here, was an obvious choice for the first of Éryx’s Bécat commissions, giving the illustrator full rein to depict naked flesh, with much of the activity taking place in the bedroom and bathroom.

The Bécat-illustrated Le doctorat impromptu was published by Éditions Éryx in a limited, numbered and boxed edition of 695 copies.