By: Peter Milton

Medium: Resist-ground etching and engraving
Image Size: 22 × 396  
Year: 1978
Edition: 160

Peter Milton’s Les Belles et la Bête: Before the Hunt shows his ability to weave together fantasy, art history, and the subconscious into a single intricate vision. The print stages a surreal mise-en-scène that recalls both rococo opulence and dreamlike theater. At the center, the “beast” reclines in a chair, surrounded by nude and semi-nude female figures who appear both playful and spectral. Around them, cherubic figures tumble through the air, horses gather at the edge of a balustrade, and architectural elements dissolve into natural scenery, all contributing to an atmosphere of suspended time and heightened imagination.

Milton’s work often draws on literary and cultural sources, and here the reference to Beauty and the Beast becomes a vehicle for exploring desire, myth, and transformation. The piece is less about telling a linear story than about creating a landscape of memory and myth where figures from different times and sensibilities coexist.