Image of Gallery in South Kensington
Request to view at the Prints & Drawings Study Room, level E , Case I, Shelf 50, Box E

Cover Design

Print
1893 (drawn), 1894 (first published), 1907 (published)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

This cover was designed for the 1894 edition of Oscar Wilde's Salome (published by John Lane) but was not used. Lane first used it for the cover of 'Under the Hill and other essays in prose and verse', a posthumous volume of Beardsley's literary output published in 1904. Linda Gertner Zatlin, author of the Beardsley catalogue raisonné, notes on p. 53 that in Kenneth Clark's 1979 book, 'Clark noted the design's Islamic character but did not know Beardsley was familiar with Persian art, which Charles B. Cochran said the artist studied at the Victoria & Albert Museum. The design may be based on William Morris's textile design Peacock and Dragon (designed 1878, itself influenced by Islamic design)'.

p. 53 Zatlin, L.G. (2016) Aubrey Beardsley. A catalogue raisonné. 2 vols. New Haven: Yale University Press.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Titles
  • Cover Design (generic title)
  • A Portfolio of Aubrey Beardsley's drawings illustrating 'Salome' by Oscar Wilde (series title)
Materials and techniques
Line block print on Japanese vellum
Brief description
Print by Aubrey Beardsley, 'Cover Design', plate III from 'A Portfolio of Aubrey Beardsley's drawings illustrating 'Salome' by Oscar Wilde', published by John Lane, London, 1907, line block print on Japanese vellum
Physical description
Black and white line block print on Japanese vellum depicting a group of stylised peacock feathers and other decorative motifs, with the play's title and author at the top of the design.
Dimensions
  • Image height: 205mm
  • Image width: 16mm
  • Sheet height: 344mm
  • Sheet width: 272mm
Style
Marks and inscriptions
  • 'SALOME / BY / OSCAR WILDE' (Handwritten printed text at the top of the image.)
  • 'PLATE III' (Printed text in the lower left hand corner of the sheet.)
Credit line
Given by Michael Harari, in memory of his father, Ralph A. Harari
Object history
From 'A Portfolio of Aubrey Beardsley's drawings illustrating 'Salome' by Oscar Wilde'. Second issue. Published by John Lane, London [1907]. With contents sheet in letterpress and 17 plates [E.422 to 438-1972] in a portfolio of grey-green paper boards, half bound in vellum, with green silk tapes, stamped in gold with title and the rose-bush motif from the 1894 edition. With the stamp of A. Lang Buchhandlung Moskau inside the front cover.

The plates are no longer in the portfolio but are now mounted separately.
Production
First printed in 1894; this print is from the second edition, 1907.
Association
Literary referenceOscar Wilde's 'Salome'
Summary
This cover was designed for the 1894 edition of Oscar Wilde's Salome (published by John Lane) but was not used. Lane first used it for the cover of 'Under the Hill and other essays in prose and verse', a posthumous volume of Beardsley's literary output published in 1904. Linda Gertner Zatlin, author of the Beardsley catalogue raisonné, notes on p. 53 that in Kenneth Clark's 1979 book, 'Clark noted the design's Islamic character but did not know Beardsley was familiar with Persian art, which Charles B. Cochran said the artist studied at the Victoria & Albert Museum. The design may be based on William Morris's textile design Peacock and Dragon (designed 1878, itself influenced by Islamic design)'.

p. 53 Zatlin, L.G. (2016) Aubrey Beardsley. A catalogue raisonné. 2 vols. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Bibliographic references
  • Victoria and Albert Museum Department of Prints, Drawings and Paintings Accession Register for 1972
  • Calloway, Stephen. Aubrey Beardsley. London: V & A Publications, 1998. 224pp, illus. ISBN: 1851772197.
Other number
Plate III - Plate number
Collection
Accession number
E.424-1972

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Record createdJune 30, 2009
Record URL
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