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Two Athenian women in distress
Beardsley, Aubrey Vincent, born 1872 - died 1898 - Enlarge image
Two Athenian women in distress
- Object:
Print
- Place of origin:
London, England (made)
- Date:
ca. 1929 (printed and published)
- Artist/Maker:
Beardsley, Aubrey Vincent, born 1872 - died 1898 (after, draughtsman (artist))
- Materials and Techniques:
Collotype print on paper
- Credit Line:
Given by Mr Vyvyan Holland
- Museum number:
E.747-1945
- Gallery location:
Prints & Drawings Study Room, level E, case I, shelf 50, box D
Aubrey Beardsley's distinctive black and white drawings for Oscar Wilde's Salomé, published in 1894, brought him an extraordinary notoriety whilst still in his early twenties. His work for the periodical The Yellow Book confirmed his position as the most innovative illustrator of the day, but as a result of the hostile moralistic outcry that followed the arrest and trial of Oscar Wilde in early 1895, John Lane and other publishers panicked and dropped Beardsley. Thereafter, almost the only publisher who would use his drawings was Leonard Smithers. Smithers was a brilliant but shady character who operated on the fringes of the rare book trade, issuing small, clandestine editions of risqué books with the boast: 'I will publish the things the others are afraid to touch'. Smithers encouraged Beardsley's already growing interest in French, Latin and Greek texts of this kind and commissioned drawings to illustrate the Satires of the late Roman poet Juvenal and, most famously, Aristophanes's bawdy satirical play Lysistrata.
The seemingly obscure and bizarre iconography of this illustration is in fact explained by reference to Aristophanes' text which describes the attempts of the Athenian women to escape the city by such means as climbing down a rope or, more fancifully, on the back of a bird.
This print comes from the folio of reproductions made from Beardsley's original drawings and published in about 1929. Utilising the expensive collotype process, these prints are much closer to the originals than the earlier line-block prints of the1896 edition of the book or the various, mostly very poor reproductions included in subsequent pirated printings.
