The Art of Sex

Incredibly, one of art's most famous face-offs was over the issue of erotic art. When the illustrious Academician Alexandre Cabanel produced his masterpiece, The Birth of Venus, in 1863, it took its place as the quintessential nude of the Second French Empire. Indeed, the work was bought by Emperor Napoleon III, who gave his name to the era.

The same year, the radical proto-impressionist painter Edouard Manet rebelled against this neo-classical-idealising art and intentionally produced an image of a woman who was not nude, but - horror of horrors - 'naked'. His epoch-making Olympia makes reference to a landmark Renaissance nude in its depiction of a prostitute. The great Realist painter Gustave Courbet took this even further in paintings such as his Femme nue, created three years later, which depicts a woman flat on her back quite clearly in the throes of sexual satisfaction.

Courbet's success with Femme nue encouraged him to go further, to depict parts even more central to womanly attributes. His L'Origine du monde, a loving depiction of the female genitalia, attracted wide attention in its day, and has not lost its ability to shock. At an exhibition at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art just over 10 years ago, it was exhibited in darkness, in isolation from the main exhibition, which gave the impression of a peep show. The painting's first owner was Khalil Bey, a Turkish 19th century collector who was an avid lover of racy French pictures. He concealed the painting behind an innocuous winter landscape by Courbet, which he would delight in sliding away to reveal what lay beneath.

But because the art of Courbet and Manet was a rebellion against the French Academy, it was not allowed to pollute the sacred precincts of the Salon, and was instead exhibited by default at the Salon des Refusés, which attracted a distinctly more Bohemian crowd. My colleague Adrian Biddell, who is Head of 19th Century European Art, tells me that the same gentlemen of the haute bourgeoisie who took their wives and families to a picture show at the Salon on a Sunday afternoon might take their mistresses to the Salon des Refusés in the evening.

Roll back to the 16th century and consider the book connoisseur, holed up in his library for hours. Was he contemplating the breakdown of Aristotelian Cosmology, as seen in the works of Copernicus? While printing began in the 15th century, most books printed before 1500 were for serious study or institutional use. However, at the start of the 16th century, private, personal reading for leisure really took off and printers used the new technology to cater to this need by producing books in smaller formats.

Printing was a clear threat to orthodoxy, as widely distributed books meant that people could think for themselves, a notion that the prevailing authorities feared as potentially heralding the end of civilisation as they knew it. This was an era, after all, in which Martin Luther had nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral in 1517, unequivocally challenging practices of the Roman Catholic hierarchy.

The Church's retaliation was the Index of Prohibited Books, published from 1559 through to 1948, to inform the orthodox what it was forbidden to read. Yet, surprise of surprises, a perusal of one such index from around the mid 16th century would inform the pious of a plethora of erotic and pornographic titles, which seems to have pushed Luther into the shadows. The Index, paradoxically, became a reference guide of must-reads for the irreverent.

The core of European printing in the period lay in Venice, and Pietro Aretino (1492-1556), whose legacy includes the title of Europe's first pornographer, chose to settle in the city he deemed 'the seat of all vices'. Notorious as a satirist of those in power, Aretino earned the title 'Scourge of Princes'. However, it is for his licentious titles that he merits note here. His profane texts include La Puttana Errante(The Errant Prostitute), the first literary work to focus on the subject of carnal gratification. His notoriously coarse poems known as The Postures, which accompanied pornographic drawings by Raphael pupil Giulio Romano, were a shocking and obscene early guide to fornication (not even the hint of a mythological or moral pretext to be found here). So influential were these erotic explorations that the French author François-Félix Nogaret even penned L'Arétin Français, a witty French equivalent to Aretino and Romano's guide to sex.

In the 17th century, the notorious English libertine John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647-80), the chief wit at the Royal court of Charles II, was an embodiment of riotous immorality. Wilmot's play Sodomis believed to be the rarest piece of early English pornography on record. Its plotline is that, bored by the 'drudgery' of normal sex, the King of Sodom decides to 'set the nation free' by allowing 'buggary' to be 'us'd thro' all the land'. What follows is outrageously X-rated in every single line, satirising the state of moral and sexual anarchy post-Restoration. Johnny Depp gave a swash buckling performance as the legendary rake in the 2004 film The Libertine, which is sure to appeal to the historically minded. (See page 112 for more on the 2nd Earl of Rochester.)

But if our bourgeois gentlemen couldn't wait until Sunday for their fix of flesh, they could always take out their pocket watches and, hiding behind an appreciation of 'craftsmanship', enjoy a more private moment with the graphic, if rudimentary, scenes of copulation (or sometimes something more kinky) played out on the hour for their personal delectation. Erotic automatons are often hidden behind decorative touches such as classical vases or flowers surrounding a watch dial, while the carnal depictions would be revealed with a press of the 'pusher' within the watch stem. Large numbers of these were made throughout the 19th century, the majority originating from Switzerland. Competition for these in the saleroom can be intense, especially with the entry of Asian clients into this marketplace: these watches, after all, speak a universal language.

During the course of the 19th century, makers upped their game by introducing vibrant, multi- coloured enamels that improved the complexity and therefore the verisimilitude of the characters and their surroundings. The Rare Gold and Enamel Quarter Repeating Musical Automata Watch with Concealed Erotic Automaton circa 1815 depicts a finely painted monk and a nun who will perform in flagrante delictoon command, the nun hoisted on a lectern in the interior of an abbey with a painting of the Madonna and Child looking on. In the background are two further painted erotic scenes. These later examples were concealed within the rear of the case, giving the exterior of the watch a conventional look belying the erotic thrill awaiting the owner within.

The Rare Gold and Enamel Quarter Repeating Musical Automata Watch with Concealed Erotic Automaton and associated case, circa 1915.

Prior to the 19th century, before watchmaking technology became more economical, only the wealthiest owners could afford such lascivious features as part of their timepieces. As with printing, improvements in technology were immediately employed to satisfy lustful tastes. But in those earlier days, production was more bespoke. An Erotic Automaton commissioned by the Maharajah of Hyderabad in 1780 was a Musical Table Clock in the form of an Ormolu-Mounted Casket. An enamel plaque portraying a duck conceals an erotic automaton scene of two naked couples frolicking in a landscape.

The story of erotic art is a long one, and there is so much more to tell. It is a story from many different times and many different lands: the erotic scrimshaw produced by American sailors on years-long whaling voyages, which is said to lie in significant numbers at the bottom of Boston harbour, having been jettisoned by their owners before they returned to their wives; or the rich story of sex life in Ancient China with surviving phalluses in stone, ceramics and bronze from the Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD); to alluring silk albums of the 17th century and provocative porcelains of the 19th century. But perhaps it would be most fitting to end with the African fertility figures whose frontal nudity and power had such an influence on Picasso and his ilk, and can stand up to anything contemporary art can produce.