Paul Scarron was a colourful figure in the social and literary circles of Paris. He wrote in particular comic dramas, verses, and a novel, some of them attacking public figures, to Scarron’s detriment. Some ten years before this collection was published he suffered an illness, possibly polio, that caused him to become crippled. He shows himself here with his back to the viewer, surrounded by the mocking figures of nine grotesque women who would appear to be burlesques on the nine muses.