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Messalina returning from the bath

Print
1906 (printed and published)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

The publisher Leonard 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 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 which illustrate Juvenal's misogynistic Sixth Satire, 'Against Woman'.

Juvenal cites the Empress Messalina as an exemplar of feminine lust and degeneracy, describing her nightly visits to the stews of ancient Rome where she posed as a prostitute in order to indulge her desires. In an earlier drawing of 1895 Beardsley had depicted her leaving the palace, disguised and attended only by a maid. In this second and more powerful treatment of the subject, he chose to illustrate the lines in which the poet describes Messalina returning to the palace, angry that her lusts remain unsatisfied.

Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleMessalina returning from the bath (assigned by artist)
Materials and techniques
Line-block print on paper
Brief description
Print by Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898). 'Messalina returning from the bath', 1906.
Physical description
Print of a woman dressed in a loose gown, her breasts exposed, climbing a baroque staircase.
Dimensions
  • Image height: 175mm
  • Image width: 142mm
  • Sheet height: 279mm
  • Sheet width: 219mm
Marks and inscriptions
lettered: MESSALINA
Credit line
Given by an anonymous donor
Object history
Illustration for the Sixth Satire of Juvenal, published in An Issue of Five Drawings illustrative of Juvenal and Lucian, Leonard Smithers, London, 1906.
Subjects depicted
Summary
The publisher Leonard 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 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 which illustrate Juvenal's misogynistic Sixth Satire, 'Against Woman'.

Juvenal cites the Empress Messalina as an exemplar of feminine lust and degeneracy, describing her nightly visits to the stews of ancient Rome where she posed as a prostitute in order to indulge her desires. In an earlier drawing of 1895 Beardsley had depicted her leaving the palace, disguised and attended only by a maid. In this second and more powerful treatment of the subject, he chose to illustrate the lines in which the poet describes Messalina returning to the palace, angry that her lusts remain unsatisfied.
Associated object
E.302-1972 (Original)
Bibliographic references
  • Brian Reade, Aubrey Beardsley, London, 1967, Cat. no. 483 (the original drawing), Mark Samuels Lasner, A Selective Check-list of the published work of Aubrey Beardsley, Boston USA, 1995, no.149, Stephen Calloway, Aubrey Beardsley, London, 1998, pp.179-80.
  • Victoria and Albert Museum, Department of Engraving, Illustration and Design and Department of Paintings, Accessions 1945, London: HMSO, 1956.
Collection
Accession number
E.684-1945

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Record createdFebruary 28, 2007
Record URL
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