Cleveland Museum of Art
The Toilet, from The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope
Aubrey BeardsleyLinkedCulture matchlcp-2ff1f2e0305b
- Date
- c. 1895–96
- Medium
- pen and black ink with traces of graphite underdrawing
- Culture
- England, 19th century
- Department
- Drawings
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 130369
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
In this drawing, Aubrey Beardsley illustrates an early scene in Alexander Pope’s satirical masterpiece The Rape of the Lock (1712) in which the heroine, Belinda, primps in her boudoir. Reflecting the poem’s emphasis on contrived rather than natural beauty, the drawing is densely layered with artifice. A view of an idyllic garden with a cupola-topped pavilion is glimpsed not through a window as it would first seem, but on a folding screen. The bejeweled bottles littering the table serve as emblems of Belinda’s vanity. After a rapid rise to fame and notoriety, Aubrey Beardsley produced hundreds of drawings before falling victim to tuberculosis at the age of 25.
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Provenance & credit
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- Credit line
- Dudley P. Allen Fund
- Provenance
- ?-1953: (R. A. Walker, Bedford, England, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH) | 1953-: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
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