On loan

  • On short term loan out for exhibition

Enter Herodias

Print
1893 (drawn), 1894 (first published), 1907 (published)
Artist/Maker
Beardsley, Aubrey Vincent (artist)
Lane, John (publisher)
Place of origin
London (made)
London (published)

Black and white line block print on Japanese vellum depicting four figures, including the statuesque queen in the centre with bare breasts and billowing hair, a naked androgynous figure of a page wearing a large fig leaf, a jester-type owl-capped figure in the bottom right, and a foetus-headed grotesque attendant to the left of the image. This figure conceals a large erection beneath his garment. Further phallic motifs can be seen in the sconces of the candlestick in the lower frieze of the design.

Object details

Categories
Prints
Illustration
Theatre
Books
Designs
Gender and Sexuality
Object type
Print
Titles
  • Enter Herodias (assigned by artist)
  • A Portfolio of Aubrey Beardsley's drawings illustrating 'Salome' by Oscar Wilde (series title)
Materials and techniques
Line block print on Japanese vellum
Japanese Vellum
Line Block
Brief description
Print by Aubrey Beardsley, 'Enter Herodias', plate IX 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 four figures, including the statuesque queen in the centre with bare breasts and billowing hair, a naked androgynous figure of a page wearing a large fig leaf, a jester-type owl-capped figure in the bottom right, and a foetus-headed grotesque attendant to the left of the image. This figure conceals a large erection beneath his garment. Further phallic motifs can be seen in the sconces of the candlestick in the lower frieze of the design.
Dimensions
  • Image height: 221mm
  • Image width: 161mm
  • Sheet height: 343mm
  • Sheet width: 272mm
Style
Decadent Movement
Marks and inscriptions
  • 'PLATE IX' (Printed text in the lower left hand corner of the sheet.)
  • (Signed with the artist's monogram, just off-centre in the lower section of the image.)
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.
Subject depicted
Salome
Association
Wilde, Oscar
Literary referenceOscar Wilde's 'Salome'
Associated objects
Bibliographic references
  • Victoria and Albert Museum Department of Prints, Drawings and Paintings Accession Register for 1972 <u>A Portfolio of Aubrey Beardsley's drawings illustrating "Salome" by Oscar Wild</u>e. 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. <u>With the stamp of</u> A. Lang Buchhandlung Moskau <u>inside the front cover</u>. <u>Line-block and half-tone on Japanese vellum</u>. <u><u>Size of sheet</u>s</u> 13 1/2 x 10 3/4 (34.3 x 27.3 cm.) E.422-438-1972 Given by Michael Harari in memory of his Father, Ralph A. Harari I The Woman in the Moon X The Eyes of Herod II Design for Title Page XI The Stomach Dance III Cover Design XII The Toilette of Salome - I IV Design for the List of Pictures XIII The Toilette of Salome - II V The Peacock Skirt XIV The Dancer's Reward VI The Black Cape XV The Climax VII A Platonic Lament XVI Salome on Settle VIII John and Salome XVII Cul de lampe IX Enter Herodias <u>Literature</u>: Vallance 86 (XIII); Gallatin p.48; Reade, note to 274-83.
  • Calloway, Stephen. Aubrey Beardsley. London: V & A Publications, 1998. 224pp, illus. ISBN: 1851772197. pp. 74-75 According to Stephen Calloway in his book, Aubrey Beardsley, London: V&A Publications, 1998, pp. 74-75: 'In Enter Herodias, Beardsley introduced a retinue of dubious characters, including a bizarre, somewhat hermaphrodite figure of a page, whose feminine cast of features and uncompromisingly frontal nudity clearly revealed that he was unaroused by the splendid vision of the brazenly bare-breasted queen. Beardsley was required to conceal this sexually tell-tale detail, and therefore drew a large and quite clearly ironic fig-leaf tied in place with a bow across the equivocal page's loins. This satisfied the objectors, all of whom, astonishingly, failed to notice either the clear outline of a monstrous erection ill-concealed by the taughtly stretched garment worn by a second, far more grotesque - though sexually conformist - attendant, or the seemingly obvious phallic shapes barely concealed as the sconces of a strange candlestick in the lower frieze of the design. On a proof copy (made from a photograph taken before the drawing was altered, and which therefore preserves the entirely unexpurgated image) which he presented to his friend, Alfred Lambart, Beardsley wrote a short, wryly funny rhyme: Because one figure was undressed This little drawing was suppressed It was unkind But never mind Perhaps it was all for the best.' Historically, the term hermaphrodite was used to describe people born with sex characteristics which do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies. The word intersex has come into preferred usage for humans, since the word hermaphrodite is now considered to be stigmatizing as well as clinically problematic. The term is repeated in this record in its original context as published in 1998.
Other number
Plate IX - Plate number
Collection
Prints, Drawings & Paintings Collection
Accession number
E.430-1972

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Record createdJuly 1, 2009
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1110742/enter-herodias-print-beardsley-aubrey-vincent/
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