Indeed, the middle of the century corresponds with a period where this genre flourished aesthetically and commercially. During the 1750s, it was the risqué and even licentious works that were met with the greatest success. Such was the case with the publishing of Jean de la Fontaine's Contes (Tales) (1621-1695), illustrated by Charles Eisen (1720-1778), in 1762, which was a real triumph. These debauched tales in no way share the same moralist inspiration as the famous Fables, and are considered to be one of the main sources of all libertine literature of the 18th century.
Fragonard no doubt studied the illustrations of the Contes at the end of his stay in Rome and during the 1760s, as the artist dedicated several series of drawings to the work. The largest, made up of fifty-seven pages, was the one assembled from the two albums conserved at the Petit-Palais and shown here. Thereafter, the project ended very much incomplete, with the publishing of the Contes overseen by Pierre Didot in 1795, of which only seventeen plates represent Fragonard's compositions. During the 1760s, Fragonard also began a series of isolated drawings illustrating a libertine tale, The Queen of Golconde by Stanislas de Boufflers (1738-1815), published in 1761. The project did not end in a printed book, and had little more success than any other of Fragonard's attempts in this genre.
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