Description

Aubrey Beardsley Di-Litho Gouache Enhanced ‘Lacedemonian Ambassadors’ – COA

Beardsley Di-Litho Gouache Enhanced ‘The Lacedemonian Ambassadors’ for The Lysistrata of Aristophanes, ca. 1896’

This artwork is a 2009 edition – non authorized copy

After the original ‘pen drawing’ from 1896.

Special non-authorized edition by Rosenbaum (2009).

Printed single sided on heavy designer paper.

Specifications

✓ Size : 42 cm x 29,5 cm (16.8″ x 11.8″)

✓ Signed in the plate – numbered on reverse

✓ Test edition nr. 1 (out of 30 pcs.)

✓ Certification on reverse side

Artwork is in excellent condition

Information on Aubrey Beardsley

Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (21 August 1872 – 16 March 1898) was an English illustrator and author. His drawings, done in black ink and influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the Aesthetic movement which also included Oscar Wilde and James A. McNeill Whistler. Beardsley’s contribution to the development of the Art Nouveau and poster styles was significant, despite the brevity of his career before his early death from tuberculosis.

Beardsley was the most controversial artist of the Art Nouveau era, renowned for his dark and perverse images and grotesque erotica, which were the main themes of his later work. Some of his drawings, inspired by Japanese shunga artwork, featured enormous genitalia. His most famous erotic illustrations concerned themes of history and mythology; these include his illustrations for a privately printed edition of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, and his drawings for Oscar Wilde’s play Salome, which eventually premiered in Paris in 1896.

He also produced extensive illustrations for books and magazines (e.g. for a deluxe edition of Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur) and worked for magazines such as The Studio and The Savoy, of which he was a co-founder. Beardsley also wrote Under the Hill, an unfinished erotic tale based loosely on the legend of Tannhäuser, published in The Savoy. Beardsley was a caricaturist and did some political cartoons, mirroring Wilde’s irreverent wit in art. Beardsley’s work reflected the decadence of his era and his influence was enormous, clearly visible in the work of the French Symbolists, the Poster art Movement of the 1890s and the work of many later-period Art Nouveau artists like Pape and Clarke.

Click HERE for more information on Aubrey Beardsley.

Click HERE for more Graphic Artwork.