Classic
Erotica
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| Classic Erotica |
One of
the plainest offerings in a recent sale held by specialist
horological auctioneers Antiquorum was an 1810, Swiss-made pocket
watch with a white dial, two hands and Breguet numerals. Nothing
remarkable about that, but those in the know were only too aware that
this particular watch was not all it seemed, because the case back
concealed a scene far removed from the staid image of Swiss
watchmaking.
The
delicately enamelled image showed a lusty fusilier involved in a very
different type
of engagement to those of the battlefield - making love to a clearly
eager farm girl on a pile of straw.
If
someone were to re-stage the exact scene today, and photograph it,
there is no doubt that it would be regarded as pornography; but in
this quaint, early 19th century painted context it is referred to
merely as 'erotic art'.
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| Classic Erotica |
And such
titillating images are by no means confined to horology, because
there is no shortage of categories for the collector of erotic
antiques to choose from; indeed, until the early 1990s, Bonhams
auctioneers held specialist erotica sales.
Since
they stopped holding such offerings, however, it has become necessary
to trawl auction catalogues covering a variety of I subjects in order
to discover where the more titillating pieces have been secreted.
If you do
choose to go the auction route, the most likely hunting grounds are
sales offering Chinese and Japanese paintings and works of art,
objects of vertu, 19th century European drawings and prints,
photographs and, of course, clocks and watches.
And if
the odd 18th century glass penis or animal gut condom is your bag,
try a sale of instruments of science and technology.
Duncan
Chilcott, who organised Bonhams' erotica auctions during the late
1980s, blames their demise in this country on the coyness of the
British buyer.
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| Classic Erotica |
"One
thing which struck me was that very few of the ardent collectors
appeared to be British," says Duncan. "There were plenty of
buyers from France, Germany and Holland, but few from our own
country. This eventually meant we had to travel to the continent in
order to find suitable property, and the sales basically ran their
course."
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| Classic Erotica |
The
British reluctance to bid or least to be seen bidding - must be a
throwback to Victorian correctness. This was the period when
production of erotic antiques created in this country was at its
height.
Whereas
our continental cousins were shamelessly guffawing over any number of
explicit engravings,
carved wooden phalluses and copulating couples, often incorporated
into such public items as Meerschaum pipes, bronze statues and
decanters with penis- shaped pourers, the British were very much
closet eroticists.
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| Classic Erotica |
The
Chinese and Japanese were just the opposite, positively revelling in
the free sexual morality of their countries. In Japan, erotic works
of art were often used as 'educational tools'.
The
cultural necessity for a Japanese woman to know exactly how to
pleasure her companion resulted in the production of all manner of
items from 'pillow books', through which they could learn what was
expected of them, to ivory statues in the form of male members with
which they practised while alone.
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| Classic Erotica |
The
Chinese have long been shameless voyeurs, and their slightly more
subtle approach to matters of the flesh often makes their products
more sought after than those of their Japanese counterparts.
Education
tended to be less important to the Chinese than titillation, and as a
result their erotic products of the 18th and 19th century were often
even more artistic. Porcelain, for example, was painted with as much
attention given to accurately depicting the flora and fauna of a
garden scene as to the orgy taking place within it.
Erotica
in two dimensions is particularly accessible in photographic form,
from the basic "what the butler saw" Victorian snap to
hilarious French flagellation scenes. Far more controversial have
been the explicit homosexual images produced by late 20th-century
photographers such as Robert Mapplethorpe, whose original prints
continue to rise steadily in value.
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| Classic Erotica |
A gentle
contrast to Mapplethorpe's rawness can be found in the dreamy
watercolours and prints of the extraordinarily prolific British
painter SirWiliam
Russell Flint.
Flint
appears to have been unashamedly besotted with his principle muse,
the late Cecilia Green. Depictions of a largely naked Ms. Green
reclining in apparently exotic locations - usually set up at Russell
Flint's Kensington studio - regularly appear at auction with prices
ranging from around £5,000 for an artist's proof to as much as
£100,000 for an original watercolour.
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