Satirical engraver William Hogarth knew all about Aristotle’s
Masterpiece. When in December 1736 he portrays a young man exhausted after sex, with an image of Cupid pointing to a rocket now moving flaccidly in a downward direction, he includes some other telling details. On the floor is a book labelled “Aristotle”, with the motto “Omne animal post coitum triste” inscribed upon it: every animal is sad after coitus. The sleeping dog underlines the point. The engraving is a companion piece to another which shows a young man attempting to seduce a woman while reading something rather different:
The Practice of Piet.