Bathyllus in the Swan Dance
Drawing
1896 (made)
1896 (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
Drawing on paper of a naked man dancing with a swan.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Title | Bathyllus in the Swan Dance (published title) |
| Materials and techniques | Pen and ink on paper |
| Brief description | Drawing by Aubrey Beardsley, ‘Bathyllus in the Swan Dance’, illustration to the Sixth Satire of Juvenal, published by Leonard Smithers in An Issue of Five Drawings Illustrative of Juvenal and Lucian, London, 1906 |
| Physical description | Drawing on paper of a naked man dancing with a swan. |
| Dimensions |
|
| Style | |
| Production type | Unique |
| Gallery label | 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 Aristophanes's famously bawdy satirical play Lysistrata and the Satires of the late Roman poet Juvenal.
Beardsley made a number of drawings to illustrate Juvenal's Sixth Satire, 'Against Woman' . Two of these represent Bathyllus, a character referred to by the author only in passing. Bathyllus was an effeminate dancer, much admired by decadent Roman audiences for his lewd and suggestive performances. In this first design, Beardsley makes specific reference to the text in which Bathyllus is described as acting the part of Leda, a maiden seduced by Zeus in the form of a swan in Greek myth. In this relatively decorous image the dancer makes an overtly camp gesture of modesty and rejection of the swan's advances. |
| Credit line | Purchased with Art Fund support |
| Object history | Provenance: R. A. Harari |
| Literary reference | Sixth Satire of Juvenal , published by Leonard Smithers in An Issue of Five Drawings Illustrative of Juvenal and Lucian , London, 1906 |
| Associated object | E.686-1945 (Reproduction) |
| Bibliographic reference | Linda Gertner Zatlin, Aubrey Beardsley : a catalogue raisonne. New Haven : Yale University Press, [2016] 2 volumes (xxxi, [1], 519, [1] pages; xi, [1], 547, [1] pages) : illustrations (some color) ; 31 cm. ISBN: 9780300111279
The entry is as follows:
Bathyllus in the Swan Dance
Begun 11 August 1896
Victoria and Albert Museum, London (E.303-1972)
Pen and Indian ink over traces of pencil on white wove paper laid down; 6 1/4 x 5 7/16 inches (159 x 138 mm).
INSCRIPTIONS: Recto inscribed by the artist in ink: BATHYLLUS
PROVENANCE: Leonard Smithers; John Lane; bt. Herbert J. Pollitt (marked to indicate ownership, but not dated, in iconography in his copy of ‘A Book of Fifty Drawings’); Hon. Evan Morgan (by 1923); A. L. Assheton; Sotheby’s (London) sale 17-19 February 1930 (392a); bt. Alsop; David Low (bookseller); bt. G. F. Sims (bookdealer);... R. A. Harari c. 1962, by descent to Michael Harari; bt. Victoria and Albert Museum in 1972 with the aid of a contribution from the National Art Collections Fund.
EXHIBITION: Paris 1907 (possibly 89); London 1966-8 (474), 1993 (117); Tokyo 1983 (168).
LITERATURE: Vallance 1897 (p. 210), 1909 (no. 159); Gallatin 1945 (no 1074); Reade 1967 (p. 361, n. 469); ‘Letters’ 1970 (pp. 150-1, 284, 286, 288, 303, 307, 363-4, 369-70); Fletcher 1987 (pp. 173-4); Samuels Lasner 1995 (no.139); Wilson in Wilson and Zatlin 1998 (p. 249, n. 169); Sturgis 1998a (p. 295).
REPRODUCED: ‘An Issue of Five Drawings Illustrative of Juvenal and Lucian’, published by Leonard Smithers, 1906; ‘Uncollected Work’ 1923 (first drawing following no. 162 only in the special edition); Reade 1967 (plate 469).
The reference to Bathyllus in Juvenal’s ‘Sixth Satire’ is brief and describes the effeminate young Roman dancer as ‘the soft Bathyllus [who] dances the part of the gesticulating Leda’; Bathyllus, however, had cult status with 1890s decadents (Fletcher 1987, p. 174; Sturgis 1998a, p. 295). The story became popular in the late nineteenth century after Gustave Moreau painted a version of Leda’s rape (‘Catalogue of Musee Gustave Moreau’, Paris, 1926, no. 43, oil sketch of Leda, p. 18), and John Gray and W. B. Yeats, to name only two, later wrote poems on the theme (Fletcher 1987, p. 174). It was also a popular subject ‘for artists seeking to create tasteful erotica and Beardsley here may be gently satirising this tradition. His swan has become overtly phallic and is peering at Bathyllus’s hidden genital area as if to ask whether this person is male or female’ (Wilson in Wilson and Zatlin, p. 249, n. 169). Beardsley owned Dryden’s 1697 translation of Juvenal and referred to Gifford’s, but Fletcher says he also worked with the Latin, coming closer in his illustration to Gifford’s rendering: ‘Lo while Bathyllo, with his flexible limbs / Acts Leda and through every posture swims’ (quoted in Fletcher 1987, pp. 173-4). Fletcher theorises that Beardsley took the semicircle formed by the swan’s wings and neck from a copy of Leonardo’s version of ‘Leda and the Swan’ (c.1505-10, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy; 1987, p. 174; there are copies after Leonardo at the Borghese Gallery, Rome, and an oil on wood panel in the collection of the Earl of Pembroke, UK; Beardsley would have read about all three of these). Beardsley completed the circle, perhaps alluding to Moreau’s swan with a halo or to the result of the rape, Leda’s pregnancy with the twins Helen and Clytemnestra (Fletcher 1987, p. 174)
According to his letters, Beardsley thought about making this drawing at the same time as he worked on ‘Juvenal scourging a Woman’ (no. 1057 above). He sketched ideas for it on 11 August 1896 and in a letter postmarked 14 August writes to Leonard Smithers, ‘I did a pretty sketch for Bathyllus as Leda last night’ (‘Letters’ 1970, p. 151). There is no further reference for almost seven months, until 24 March 1897, when Beardsley asks Pollitt for some money in advance of his completion of the picture. By 26 March, Pollitt had sent the money, and Beardsley replies, ‘Bathyllus shall be scrumptious. You are the great enchanter who has dispersed bailiffs with the stroke of your pen. Bathyllus is going to wear one or two flounces of lace and a faded scarlet sash. The swan who performs with him shall be the most handsome bird conceivable. I mean to let you have the thing imminently’ (pp. 284, 286). Four days later, on 30 March 1897, in a letter announcing his precipitous move to Menton, France, he addresses Pollitt as ‘Maecenas’, the Roman patron of the literary arts, and signs himself ‘Ever your artificer’, once again promising, ‘I hasten with Bathylle’ (p. 288). In Paris, he thinks about work, but on 14 April 1897 again delays completion of this drawing: ‘Tomorrow I shall begin to interest myself in picture making and the limning of Bathylle’ (p. 303). His health prevented him from concentrating, and in mid-September the drawing remained incomplete, as he writes to Pollitt: ‘Bathylle must and shall be done before long but just now my life is atrociously knotted and I don’t settle down readily to pencil and papier [sic] (pp. 369-70 [16 September 1897]). That is the last reference to this drawing in his published letters, but Beardsley may have completed it and given it to Pollitt when the collector visited him. Towards the end of his work on this drawing, Beardsley conceived of ‘Arbuscula’, a dancer of the early Roman Empire, as a pendant to it (pp. 363-4; see no. 1075 below). |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | E.303-1972 |
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| Record created | June 30, 2009 |
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