Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Writing about boobs is one of our favorite jobs here at Sartle headquarters. While all boobs are beautiful (ABAB!) they can also make you very very sick or can even be deadly. Ok, fair enough, it’s not the boob itself, but about 1 in 8 U.S. women will develop invasive breast cancer over the course of her lifetime. October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, so we would like to remind you all to check yourself regularly. Yeah gents, you too! Even though the risk is a lot smaller, it’s still 1 in a 1000. Click here if you need more information on how check yourself before you wreck yoself.

Artists love breasts as well, which means there are beautiful bosoms to be found in museums all over the world. The following painting, Gabrielle d'Estrées and One of her Sisters is a Sartle favorite. My fellow Sartler Angelica wrote a blog about it a while back.

That’s right, the infamous, 16th century, nipple-pinching masterpiece made by an unknown artist. Or as miss Virginia Woolf would say “probably a woman.” You can check out this painting at the Louvre in Paris. Gabrielle d’Estrees was the mistress of King Henry IV of France all the way back in the 16th century. She is holding a ring, while her sister pinches her nipple. I don’t have a sister so I’m not sure if this is a common thing sisters do while posing for a painting…but I feel like it isn’t. Historians say it is a symbolic announcement that Gabrielle is pregnant with Henry’s child. In the background you can also see a girl who is sewing something…maybe some cute onesies for the baby?

This wouldn’t be Sartle if I we wouldn’t tell you a naughty story as well, right? 16th century historian Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantôme (dang! thats a mouthful) describes the painting as a couple of “fair naked ladies” who “touch, and feel, and handle, and stroke, one the other, and intertwine and fondle with each other.” Because yeah, I mean, everything about boobs is sexual right? *eye roll*

Pierre had a dirty story to tell about a group of women who went to see the infamous painting. Apparently one of the ladies “lost herself” while looking at the painting and immediately dragged her lover back to her motel room.

Anyway, as I said we absolutely love this painting. Angelica already highlighted some of her favorite rip offs, or rather homages, to Gabrielle and her sister, but there are many, many more! I’d like to share with you some of my favorite as well, to celebrate the bosom.