Print by Aubrey Beardsley, 'The Toilette of Salome II', later published as plate XIII in 'A Portfolio of Aubrey Beardsley's drawings illustrating 'Salome' by Oscar Wilde', published by John Lane, London, 1894 and 1907, artist's proof, line block print on Japanese vellum

Print of 'The Toilette of Salome II', which was later published as plate XIII in 'A Portfolio of Aubrey Beardsley's drawings illustrating 'Salome' by Oscar Wilde', depicting Salome, who is seated and is naked apart from a wrap, in front of a Godwin-style dressing table on which are numerous ornaments and books, as well as a vase of flowers. A bald pierrot of a barber stands to the side of Salome attending to her, a small powder puff in his left hand, whilst a naked page appears on the right of the image, holding a tray complete with refreshments. To the left of the design are two figures: a semi-naked woman holding a stringed instrument and a seated naked man, possibly in the act of masturbating. In the background of the image is a window, which is partially obscured by curtains.

This image is one of 199 photo-process prints (E.358 to E.556-1899) of reproductions, chiefly proofs, of designs and illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley; and his portrait. Bought from Mrs A Gleeson White, 21st January 1899.

The image was subsequently published in 'A Portfolio of Aubrey Beardsley's drawings illustrating 'Salome' by Oscar Wilde', published by John Lane, London, 1894 and 1907. The V&A has a copy of the 1907 edition in its collection. [E. 442A & B-1972 and E.422 to 438-1972]. The plates are no longer in the portfolio but are now mounted separately.

This image, the original design for 'The Toilette of Salome' (E.434-1972) was deemed unacceptable by the publishers and so Beardsley was asked to provide another design (E.433-1972). According to Stephen Calloway in his book, Aubrey Beardsley, London: V&A Publications, 1998, pp. 75-77: 'At least three of Beardsley's drawings were considered quite 'impossible' by Lane and his unofficial censorship board. The most problematic of all was the first version of The Toilet of Salome, a scene in which Salome is seen seated, naked except for a vague suggestion of a wrap, at a thoroughly modern dressing-table with elegant attenuated legs in ebonised wood in the smart, Aesthetic Movement style of E.W. Godwin. Apart from the curious extent to which, in setting and characterisation, the illustration wilfully strayed from Wilde's text in which no such episode occurs, the figure of Salome herself appears from the heavy lids of her eyes and dreamy smile, from the erect profile of the nipple of her bare breast and, not least, from the position of her hand, to be quite obviously lost in a masturbatory reverie. Indeed, on closer inspection of the supporting figures and incidental details, it is clear that the entire image is full of other, more coded references to depravity, any of which might, however, have proved all too easy for a nineteenth-century audience to read. These included not just the facial and physical looks and gestures of the other attendants, but also subtle details such as the bent spine (thought by most moral Victorian observers to be an inevitable outcome and overt evidence of solitary vice) exhibited by the sexually ambiguous - and also masturbating - creature seated in the foreground on a fashionable Moorish stool.'

First printed in the 1890s and later published in 'A Portfolio of Aubrey Beardsley's drawings illustrating 'Salome' by Oscar Wilde' in 1894 and in the second edition in 1907.

E.411-1899