| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Title | Le Morte Darthur
(series title) |
| Materials and techniques | Pen and ink on paper |
| Brief description | Drawing by Aubrey Beardsley, girl in a library with an open book on a table, design for a chapter heading in Thomas Malory’s 'Le Morte Darthur', omitted from the first edition possibly by mistake but used for Chapter IX, Book VI, p.128 in the edition of 1909, pen and ink, London, ca.1893-4 |
| Physical description | A drawing in black ink depicting a woman in a library looking at an open book laid on a table. In the background there are bookcases filled with books and a fireplace partially covered by a black curtain. |
| Dimensions | - Sheet height: 12.5cm
- Sheet width: 9.4cm
- Image height: 119mm
- Image width: 90mm
|
| Object history | Beardsley was commissioned by J. M. Dent to produce illustrations for his intended republication of Malory's romantic tale 'Le Morte Darthur'; it was Beardsley's first commission. This design was for a chapter heading in 'Le Morte Darthur' that was published by Dent between 1893-4. The image was omitted from this first edition, possibly by mistake, but was used for Chapter IX, Book VI, in the 1909 edition. |
| Subjects depicted | |
| Associations | |
| Literary reference | 'Le Morte Darthur' by Thomas Malory |
| Bibliographic references | - Calloway, Stephen. Aubrey Beardsley. London: V & A Publications, 1998. 224pp, illus. ISBN: 1851772197.
chapter 3
- 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:
678
Young Woman reading a Book
Book VI, chapter ix, 1909 edition
1892-4
Victoria and Albert Museum, London (D.1826-1904)
Pen, brush and Indian ink over pencil on pale beige wove paper; 4 15/16 x 3 11/16 inches (126 x 94 mm).
INSCRIPTIONS: Verso in pencil: reduce by 1/3 / 4 / [in ink]: D.1826-1904 / [stamp of] National Art Library
PROVENANCE: J. M. Dent; …; bt. Victoria and Albert Museum in 1904.
EXHIBITION: London 1966-8 (198).
LITERATURE: Vallance 1897 (p.202), Cochran Westminster Budget 25 March 1898 (p.9); Vallance 1909 (no.59.xx); Macfall 1927 (p.64) Walker 1945a (p.11); Gallatin 1945 (no. 631-41); Reade 1967 (p.324 n.154); Letters 1970 (pp.34, 37); Zatlin 1990 (pp.169, no.25, 183); Samuels Lasner 1995 (no.22b).
REPRODUCED: Le Morte Darthur, 1909 (p. 128); Reade 1967 (plate 154).
In the 1909 single-volume edition of Le Morte Darthur ten drawings were included that had been omitted from the 1893-4 edition. Reade believed that this drawing, like many of the later ones, has little relevance to the text; he pointed out, for example, that medieval libraries were in monasteries, forbidden to women (1997, p.324, no.154). This library is, however, Victorian, emblematised by the bow affixed to the table skirt, rather than medieval, but its information is no less dangerous - the open book offers sexual knowledge, and ribbons were a Victorian symbol of reins, or of holding power (Zatlin 1990, pp.169 and n.25). For this space, Beardsley created a deliberately transgressive feminist image built by reading those who, like Richard Payne Knight, wrote about sexual symbols, as well as the works of Nathanial Hawthorne, whose Tales he had been commissioned to illustrate in autumn 1892 (Zatlin 1990, p.183; Cochran Westminster Budget 25 March 1898, p.9; Letters 1970, p. 34 [autumn 1892], p.37, Midnight 9 December [1892]). Gaining the forbidden power of the book, the young woman gazes intently at the right-hand page on which appears the stylised vulva shape representative of phallic worship cults, known by those who read Richard Payne Knight’s treatises on the worship of Priapus (Zatlin 1990, see figs 125, 126). The letter A on the left-hand page of the book boldly alludes to Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter (1850), in which the townspeople of Boston force the protagonist Hester Prynne to wear the letter A as a mark of shame for committing adultery. By association, the letter A refers to the extra-marital affairs of Guenevere and Isoud. (If Beardsley had not read Hawthorne’s novel previously, he might have after seeing Oscar Wilde’s play A Woman of No Importance (opened 19 April 1893), whose Hester and Lord Illingworth refer to Hawthorne’s characters; see no. 234 above). Reinforcing the potential for unbridled sexuality is the figure’s hairstyle, shared by Salome (nos. 866, 869, 871 below), and the delicate liqueur goblet placed to the right of the book. For another use of the vulva symbol, see no. 632 above.
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