aubrey beardsley by linda gertner zatlin: sample pages

AUBREY BEARDSLEYA C ATA L O G U E R A I S O N N É L I N DA G E RT N E R Z AT L I N•i•

aubrey Beardsley

aubrey BeardsleyA C ATA L O G U E R A I S O N N É

•i•

L I N DA G E RT N E R Z AT L I N

•i•

P U B L I S H E D F O R T H E P A U L M E L L O N C E N T R E

F O R S T U D I E S I N B R I T I S H A R T B Y

Y A L E U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S • N E W H A V E N A N D L O N D O N

Preface ix

Aubrey Beardsley: A Chronology xiii

A Note on the Catalogue xxix

C ATA L O G U E

Juvenilia • 1880–1888 1

Early Drawings, Japonesques and Grotesques •

1889–1893 75

Le Morte Darthur • 1892–1894 225

Bon-Mots Series • 1892–1893 421

Keynotes Series • 1893–1896 485

A Note on the Catalogue ix

C ATA L O G U E

Salome • 1893–1894 1

Yellow Book • 1894–1895 57

Other Drawings I • 1894–1895 129

Poster Designs • 1894–1896 183

The Rape of the Lock • 1895–1896 205

Savoy • 1896 229

Lysistrata • 1896 305

The Pierrot of the Minute • 1896 325

Mademoiselle de Maupin • 1897 337

Other Drawings II • 1896–1897 353

Volpone: or The Foxe • 1897–1898 391

Appendices 409

A Drawings in letters 410

B Drawings in books Beardsley owned 430

C Drawings in the record but without further trace 440

D Forgeries, parodies and omissions 446

Dramatis personae 460

Exhibitions 472

Archives 479

List of works consulted 481

General index 502

Index of works 526

Photograph credits 538

Acknowledgements 540

I II

Other Drawings Ii1896–1897

8 a u b r e y b e a r d s l e y

251250

o t h e r d r a w i n g s i i 9

251

Carl Maria von Weber

1892

Princeton University Library, Princeton University,

Princeton, NJ, Aubrey Beardsley Collection

Pen and ink on medium thick cream wove paper;

117/16 × 51/16 inches (289 × 129 mm)

i n s c r i p t i o n s : Recto in ink inscribed by the artist

at top: c a r l m a r i a v o n w e b e r ; Verso in ink in

another hand: Title von Weber / Aubrey Beardsley

London / Owner Harriet C. Foss 1891 / size 51/8 × 111/2

/ given by the artist to / Harriet C. Foss [American

artist, 1860–1938]

p r o v e n a n c e : Given by the artist to Harriet

Campbell Foss, the stepmother of an Englishwoman;

consigned to E. P. Dutton’s bookshop, New York;

bt. A. E. Gallatin; given to Princeton University in 1948.

e x h i b i t i o n s : Berlin 1907 (20, where listed for sale

at 500 Marks); London 1966–8 (128); Tokyo 1997–8 (2);

Princeton, NJ 1998–9 (17).

l i t e r at u r e : Gallatin 1945 (no. 776); Gallatin and

Wainwright 1952 (no. 31); Reade 1967 (p. 313 n.29);

Zatlin 1997 (pp. 129–30).

r e p r o d u c e d : Later Work 1901 (plate 147); Gallatin

1900b (plate 7); Reade 1967 (plate 30).

A portrait of the German composer Carl Maria

von Weber (1786–1826), who like Chopin died

young of tuberculosis. As in the drawing of Klafsky

(no. 252 below), Beardsley tilted the floor, making

it seem that von Weber is standing on a raked stage

just behind a rug or a border that matches the one

at the top. Similar to Japanese designers who placed

figures against a background in such a way that the

image appears to be merging with the scene

behind, Beardsley created the same effect with this

drawing. Von Weber may be on a raked stage, but

the curving lines of the fanciful ground resemble

wall rather than floor decoration, he has no shadow,

and his cane seems too short for him to be leaning

on it. Weber’s body, therefore, appears to float

against a flat backdrop rather than to stand in front

of a curtain on a stage. Moreover, in this early

drawing – as in Klafsky, Virgilius and John Lumsden

Propert – much less complicated than later ones,

Beardsley defied both gravity and spatial placement

in a different way from Cézanne, tricking the eye

in his own manner by showing the stage and von

Weber’s feet from above and his figure flattened

against the picture plane (for example, nos. 252 and

330 below; Zatlin 1997, pp. 129–30). The whip-like

lines extending outward from that border will reap-

pear in a more simplified form on the cover of

Ernest Dowson’s Verses (no. 1055 below). By the

time he made this drawing, Beardsley would have

known Burne-Jones well enough to know that he

scraped his paint to achieve highlights, a technique

that may have stimulated Beardsley to use scraping

in his drawings, as he does here, to simulate texture.

Beardsley would develop this style during 1892.

He later made another drawing of von Weber (no.

1028 below).

252

Klafsky

1892


Princeton, NJ, Aubrey Beardsley Collection (RS237)

Pen, pencil, Indian ink and watercolour on medium

thick pale brown wove paper; 1213/16 × 411/16 inches

(326 × 118 mm)

i n s c r i p t i o n s : Recto inscribed by the artist in ink

at the top with the singer’s name spelled as pronounced

in German: k l a f s k y / [at lower left]: i s o l d e ;

Verso in pencil in another hand: e / 5 / D / RS 237

p r o v e n a n c e : Reverend G. H. Palmer; James

Tregaskis (bookseller) August 1901 (269); bt. A. E. Gallatin

(by 1902); given to Princeton University in 1948.

e x h i b i t i o n s : New York 1911–12 (31), 1918 (68),

1920 (18), 1923 (423), 1923–4 (84, where titled ‘Klafsky

as Isolde’), 1924–6, 1945 (14); Princeton, NJ 1949;

London 1966–8 (130); Princeton, NJ 1998–9 (19).

l i t e r at u r e : Vallance 1897 (p. 203, where titled

‘Isolde’); White 14 May 1898 (p. 260); Vallance 1909

(no. 118); Gallatin 1945 (no. 982); Gallatin and

Wainwright 1952 (51); Reade 1967 (p. 313 n.28, where

titled ‘Katharina Klavsky’); Letters 1970 (p. 71); Heyd

1986 (pp. 169, 171, figure 63); Samuels Lasner 1995

(no. 137); Zatlin 1997 (pp. 79–80, 102); Sutton 2002

(pp. 62–3).252


526

Woman examining a SundialBook IX, chapter xi

by 22 August 1893

p r o v e n a n c e : J. M. Dent.

l i t e r at u r e : Vallance 1897 (p. 202), 1909 (no. 59.xx);

Gallatin 1945 (nos. 345–624); Samuels Lasner 1995

(no. 22).

r e p r o d u c e d : Le Morte Darthur 1893–4 (p. 386).

Reproduced here from the book. Repeated in

Book X, chapter lxxxvii, p. 635.

527

Woman in the Snow holding RosesBook IX, chapter xiii

by 22 August 1893

Columbia University, New York, NY, Rare Book and

Manuscript Library

Pen, brush and Indian ink on paper; 61/2 × 41/16 inches

(166 × 113 mm)

i n s c r i p t i o n s : Verso in pencil: 38/89 / 47o /

reduce by 1/3 / [on verso of original mat in ink]: C 12

/ [in pencil]: 22–3-7 / no. 12

f l o w e r s : Rose [ball type] and leaf (love, passion).

p r o v e n a n c e : J. M. Dent; . . . ; Pickford Waller;

by descent to Sybil Waller; Christie’s (London) sale 12

November 1965 (43); bt. Agnew; Agnew sale 14 June–

16 July 1966 (29); . . . ; Columbia University.

e x h i b i t i o n : Tokyo 1997–8 (12).


Gallatin 1945 (nos. 345–624); Samuels Lasner 1995

(no. 22).

r e p r o d u c e d : Le Morte Darthur 1893–4 (p. 389).

The trees lack foliage, and the white ground sug-

gests snow. Traces of pencil reveal that Beardsley

gave the figure of the woman less hair, a thinner

neck, higher sleeves and shoulders and fuller sleeves

at the elbow; her left hand was lower.

528

Man and Woman facing RightBook IX, chapter xvi

by 22 August 1893

Library of Congress, Washington, DC, Rosenwald

Collection

Pen, brush and Indian ink over pencil on white paper;

41/2 × 215/16 inches (114 × 75 mm)

i n s c r i p t i o n s : Verso laid down on brown paper

from which drawing has been partially torn away:

[in pencil]: n [illegible] 6

f l o w e r s : Bay tree (glory).

p r o v e n a n c e : J. M. Dent; Frederick H. Evans;

Anderson Galleries Frederick H. Evans sale 20 March

1919 (12); bt. Rosenbach Galleries, Rosenbach Galleries

Catalogue 48 May 1919 (10); . . . ; Lessing J. Rosenwald

(possibly in 1924); given to Library of Congress in 1941.

e x h i b i t i o n s : London 1909b (30–50); Brighton, UK

1914–15 (33); Philadelphia 1919 (10); New York 1923–4

(96); London 1966–8 (50, exhibited in USA only).


Gallatin 1945 (nos. 345–624); Reade 1967 (p. 320 n.109);

Samuels Lasner 1995 (no. 22).

526

527 528


July 1895; Pan II.ii (1896–7), p. 338; Early Work 1899

(no. 133); Best of Beardsley 1948 (plate 58); Reade 1967

(plate 382).

Henry Thornton Wharton translated the poetic

fragments of Sappho, the sixth-century bce poet

who lived on the island of Lesbos. The design is

formally divided into three compartments, the

whole bordered by a double-ruled frame, typical of

Beardsley’s borders. The Greek letter psi, stylised to

look like an ancient (late sixth-century bce) lyre,

anchors each corner of the cover and emphasises

the central design of an equally stylised (1890s) six-

stringed lyre, balanced at each side with a psi, dotted

to resemble a peacock feather. Two of these small

dotted designs also trim the spine. Some suggestion

of Rossetti’s early designs without their ‘marked

asymmetricality’ pervades this cover (Fletcher 1987,

p. 132). It was printed in gold on the front cover

with blind embossing on the back cover. This cover

design is an example of the manner in which

Beardsley’s drawings are ‘all remarkable for their

restraint, for meagre or minimal elegance’, an ele-

gance found also in the aesthetic ideal held by poets

such as Ernest Dowson and in the graphic art of

Charles Ricketts (Reade 1967, p. 350 n.385).

954

Venus between Terminal Gods

late Spring 1895

Trustees of the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford, UK

Pen, Indian ink and white gouache over traces of pencil

on white wove paper; 83/4 × 77/16 inches (220 × 181 mm)

i n s c r i p t i o n s : Recto inscribed in capital letters by

the artist in ink at lower left: v e n u s.; Verso: [stamp of

Cecil Higgins] / [in black pencil]: 4 / 21/4 × 10 /

where[?] 10 Hunt[?] / N of [?] / 11.9 / Henry & Co /

proof Mr. Beardsley

f l o w e r s : Grape (intoxication), apple (temptation),

pear (affection), rose [face, plate, ball types] (love,

passion), poppy (consolation, fantastic extravagance, sleep,

my bane), pomegranate (foolishness), daisy (innocence).

p r o v e n a n c e : H. Henry and Co.; bt. Leonard

Smithers by 25 May 1897 [further details below]; John

Lane (1904); Herbert J. Pollitt (by 1909); . . . ; Fitzroy

Carrington; . . . ; Mathiesen, Ltd.; bt. Cecil Higgins Art

Gallery in December 1957.

e x h i b i t i o n s : Paris 1900 (20, where titled

‘Frontispiece for Venus and Tannhäuser’; this or no. 942

above); London 1904a (68 or 87); Paris 1907 (3);

London 1909b (111); New York 1911–12 (85); Brighton,

UK 1914–15 (possibly 6); New York 1923 (415); London

1966–8 (441); Rotterdam 1975–6; Kanagawa, Japan 1998

(135).

l i t e r at u r e : Vallance 1897 (p. 209), 1909 (no. 101);

Macfall 1927 (pp. 148, 156, 163); May 1936 (p. 210);

Gallatin 1945 (no. 861); Stanford 1967 (p. 23); Reade

1967 (p. 350 n.387); Letters 1970 (p. 323); Lambert and

Ratcliffe 1987 (p. 120); Fletcher 1987 (p. 152); Zatlin 1990

(pp. 195–6); Samuels Lasner 1995 (no. 132); Snodgrass

1995 (pp. 148, 150); Zatlin 1997 (p. 116); Wilson in Wilson

and Zatlin 1998 (p. 243, n.135); Raby 1998 (p. 62).

r e p r o d u c e d : Second Book of Fifty Drawings 1899

(plate 42, where titled ‘Frontispiece for Venus and

Tannhäuser’); Later Work 1901 (no. 72, where titled

‘Frontispiece for Venus and Tannhäuser’); Best of Beardsley

1948 (plate 44); Reade 1967 (plate 386).

954


r e p r o d u c e d : As colour lithograph supplement to

illustrate ‘The Herkomer School’, Studio VI, 31 (October

1895); Early Work 1899 (no. 24); Pan V.ii (1899/1900,

p. 261); Birnbaum 1946 (plate 40); Best of Beardsley 1948

(plate 54); Walker Graphis 1950 (p. 251); Gaunt 1964

(figure 159); Reade 1967 (plate 391); Wilson 1983

(plate 39).

Beardsley was entranced by Richard Wagner’s

operas, and he continued throughout his life to

make drawings of the composer’s characters at deci-

sive points in their stories. Stylistically, the young

artist took cues from Whistler, who divorced

morality from art, who advocated Pater’s phrase

from The Renaissance that art should aspire to the

condition of music, and whose titles were moods,

and from Wilde’s dictum, modelled on Pater, that

art should not mean, but be (Pater 1873, p. 140;

Wilde ‘The Decay of Lying’, pp. 44). In some draw-

ings, however, Beardsley also used symbols. By the

summer of 1895, he had become practised at strip-

ping away backgrounds and focusing on figures,

adroitly capturing a ‘narrative’ through posture and

rapt gaze, here seen in Isolde’s face. Such concen-

tration did not endear Beardsley to the late Victo-

rians, who preferred their art to express a clear

narrative and an equally distinct moral.

Beardsley places Isolde in front of a red (theatre)

curtain, about to drink from the chalice she believes

holds poison, but that in fact holds a love potion.

Inscribed on the drawing, her name identifies

her as Wagner’s tragic heroine. The poppy-shaped

flowers with their vibrant green leaves and the

‘exotic butterfly’s wing’ outline of her hat intimate

the transience of her life (Reade 1967, p. 351 n.392)

as does the grey outline of her figure. Her clothing

calls to mind other Beardsley women. Her hat, for

example, is reminiscent of Salome’s hat in The

Peacock Skirt and The Eyes of Herod, and that of the

woman on the right in Black Coffee (nos. 866, 869,

922 above). The style of her gown links her with

the New Woman: the suggestively buttoned over-

skirt, its frilled side panel opening like labia and

the soft outline of her gown, emphasised by the

bright red curtain, symbolise her adulterous passion.

‘The braided green counterweight of her necklace

hangs down her back, a similarly patterned thick

bracelet coils around her right wrist. Like the curl

of hair on her right shoulder, both pieces of jewel-

lery end in tassels, another Beardsleyan sexual 957


A7

To G. F. Scotson-Clark

early July 1891


Princeton, NJ, Aubrey Beardsley Collection

p r o v e n a n c e : G. F. Scotson-Clark; Bayard Wyman,

Anderson Galleries Bayard Wyman sale 18 December

1928 (201); . . . ; A. E. Gallatin; given to Princeton

University in 1948.

l i t e r at u r e : G. F. Scotson-Clark 1920 (Letter no. 1).

r e p r o d u c e d : Letters 1970 (pp. 19–20, text only).

This letter discusses Beardsley’s visit to the Leyland

collection and his application to the Herkomer

School of Art. Underneath his postscript that men-

tions his enclosed photo, ‘a frightfosity [a pun on

monstrosity]’, is a caricature self-portrait. After his

visit to the Leyland house and collection, Beardsley

looks perhaps sceptical of his own talent.

A8

To G. F. Scotson-Clark

early July 1891

Library of Congress, Washington, DC

p r o v e n a n c e : Bayard Wyman; Anderson Galleries

Bayard Wyman sale 18 December 1928 (200); . . . ;

Ogden Goelet; Parke-Bernet Goelet sale 23–24

November 1954 (623); Library of Congress.

l i t e r at u r e : G. F. Scotson-Clark 1920 (Letter no. 2,

p. 9); Gallatin 1945 (no. 189).

r e p r o d u c e d : Uncollected Work 1925 (nos. 58–67);

Letters 1970 (pp. 20–1, text only).

This four-page letter, known as the Peacock Room

letter, contains on page two Beardsley’s beautiful

watercolour reproduction of Whistler’s painting

La Princesse du Pays de la Porcelaine (1863–5, Freer

Gallery, Washington, DC), surrounded by blue pea-

cocks. He comments in the letter: ‘Whistler has a

large painting in his Peacock Room. I suppose this

is what you mean by the Jap Girl painting a vase.

A6a A6b A6c

A7


The figure is very beautiful and gorgeously painted,

the colour being principally old gold’ (A8a; Uncol-

lected Work, no. 58). There are five other pen sketches

on pages two through four. Underneath Beardsley’s

copy of Whistler’s Princesse is a sketch of an allée of

trees (A8a) to which Beardsley makes no reference

in the letter. On page three are a drawing of Mabel

and Aubrey ‘Going through the rooms’, passing a

footman standing at attention as they enter to view

the Leyland collection of paintings (A8a), as well as

a sketch, Beardsley enthuses, of a ‘wonderful little

boy in the street (101/2 years old) who draws in

chalks on a large board. Subject a castle and sea

surrounding it – done in grand style I can tell you’

(A8a; Uncollected Work, nos. 59, 67). The topmost

sketch on page four is macabre: a gallows, from

which hangs a skull, is surmounted by a raven in

whose elliptically shaped body Beardsley has signed

the letter (A8b; Uncollected Work, no. 61). A tiny

sketch to the immediate right consists of the long-

legged Beardsley seated at a drawing board making

‘enclose[d] Jap sketches. Official performances’

(A8b; Uncollected Work, no. 61). The last drawing on

page four shows a grinning painter with limbs

fashioned of pens and nibs, holding a mahl stick

(see no. 747 above), palette and brushes (A8b; Uncol-

lected Work, no. 62).

In his 1920 memoir of Beardsley, Scotson-Clark

recalls that he gave the ‘Jap sketches’ (exact number

unknown) to their Brighton Grammar School

friend Mr Trist. These, which are lost, could be the

three drawings recorded by Hind as belonging with

this letter in Uncollected Work (nos. 64, 66, 65) and

titled respectively The Dwarf of Philip IV (A8c),

Autumn Moon (A8d) and 59 Charlwood St Sunday

Midnight (A8e). Scotson-Clark further remembers

A8a

AUBREY BEARDSLEYThis is the first book to bring together the recorded works

of the English artist Aubrey Beardsley. Despite his early death

from tuberculosis in 1898, at the age of 25, these amount to

more than 1200 and the book includes over 50 that have never

previously been published.

In his brief career Beardsley made a defining contribution

to Art Nouveau in Britain and abroad. He also influenced

the early history of modern art, attracting the attention of

the young Picasso, for example. His distinctive and innovatory

graphic style, combined with highly provocative, often sexual

subject matter, outraged critics and led to a period of intense

notoriety. Beardsley’s illustrations span the grotesque, the deli-

cately beautiful, the subtly erotic, and the frankly bawdy, and

challenged the moral norms of Victorian society. They en-

thralled artists and art lovers the world over and continue to

enthrall today.

Linda Gertner Zatlin’s text presents Beardsley’s drawings

with a full record of their making, provenance, exhibition his-

tory and references in the art historical literature. This is ac-

companied by extensive discussions of their themes, motifs and

symbolism, as well as their critical reception. Unprecedented

in its scope and thoroughness, this study presents Beardsley’s

work and explores its meanings more comprehensively that

any previous work on him, and is likely to remain definitive.

This superbly illustrated two volume catalogue, beautifully

presented as a boxed set, is both an essential reference for spe-

cialists and an accessible and enchanting delight for Beardsley

enthusiasts.

B I B L I O G R A P H I C D E TA I L S

• Hardback £175.00 / $300.00 • March 2016 UK / May 2016 US • 978-0300-111279

2 volumes in a printed slipcase • 552 / 560 pages: 295 × 250 mm • 1100 b/w + 100 color illustrations

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AUBREY BEARDSLEYA C ATA L O G U E R A I S O N N É L I N DA G E RT N E R Z AT L I N

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aubrey beardsley by linda gertner zatlin: sample pages

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