Crouching Dwarf, Seated Man Playing with a Goat, Woman with a Boar, Vase "inventé par Robert," Vase with Two Swans, Vase with Two Griffons 1765

Editor: This print by Jean-Claude Richard, Abbé de Saint-Non, presents a variety of figures and vases. It's interesting how they're all together on one sheet. What do you see in this collection of images? Curator: I see a fascination with the past, a desire to categorize and preserve cultural memory. These images are like relics, each carrying its own symbolic weight. Consider the vases – what do swans and griffins represent? Editor: I guess swans could represent grace, and griffins maybe power? Curator: Precisely. And the crouching dwarf? Perhaps a symbol of the marginalized, yet enduring. This sheet becomes a visual encyclopedia of symbols. What do you make of that? Editor: It's like the artist is inviting us to decode them, to understand the past through these powerful images.