{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O132906"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O132906/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2013GA5286/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2013GA5286/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2013GA5286","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006BA0879","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006BC7232","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O132906/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O132906","accessionNumber":"E.338-1972","objectType":"Drawing","titles":[{"title":"The Impatient Adulterer","type":"assigned by artist"}],"summaryDescription":"Aubrey Beardsley's distinctive black and white drawings for Oscar Wilde's <i>Salomé</i>, published in 1894, brought him an extraordinary notoriety whilst still in his early twenties. His work for <i>The Yellow Book</i> confirmed his position as the leading most innovative illustrator of the day, but as a result of the hostile moralistic outcry that followed the arrest and trial of Oscar Wilde in early 1895, John Lane and other publishers panicked and dropped Beardsley. Thereafter, almost the only publisher who would use his drawings was Leonard Smithers. Smithers was a brilliant but shady character who operated on the fringes of the rare book trade, issuing small, clandestine editions of risqué books. Smithers encouraged Beardsley's already growing interest in French, Latin and Greek texts of this kind and commissioned drawings to illustrate Aristophanes's famously bawdy satirical play <i>Lysistrata</i> and the <i>Satires</i> of the late Roman poet Juvenal. \r\n\r\nChoosing  particularly salacious episodes in  Juvenal's <i>Sixth Satire: 'Against Woman'</i>, Beardsley made several drawings that were too explicit for normal publication. 'The Impatient Adulterer', illustrates a scene in which a would-be seducer is allowed by a depraved  mother to view her daughter through a curtain. Juvenal describes how this unscrupulous pander pulls back her child's bedcovers:\r\n     'casts off the Rugge. Whilst the hid Knave attends,\r\n      And masterprates, mad to be so delay'd.'  \r\n     [Juvenal, VI, lines 237-8, translation by Sir Robert Stapylton, 1647]\r\nBeardsley had begun the drawing in August 1896, directly after completing his <i>Lysistrata</i> series whilst staying at Boscombe, but left it incomplete at that time. Perhaps realising that it could not be printed, he offered it to his new friend and patron Herbert Pollitt, when the latter visited him at Bournemouth in late April 1897. Beardsley wrote to Pollitt on 3rd March to inform him 'the little drawing for Juvenal VI 237-8 is done.'","physicalDescription":"Pen and ink drawing with traces of pencil of a man wearing a shirt, but naked from the waist down, touching his penis whilst looking through a gap between two curtains.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Beardsley, Aubrey","id":"A8134"},"association":{"text":"artist","id":"AAT25103"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"paper","id":"x30308"},{"text":"pen and Indian ink","id":"x47322"}],"techniques":[{"text":"drawing","id":"AAT54196"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Pen and ink over pencil on paper","categories":[{"text":"Drawings","id":"THES48966"},{"text":"Illustration","id":"THES48938"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"PDP","id":"THES48595"},"images":["2013GA5286","2006BA0879","2006BC7232"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"LVLE","id":"THES49657"},"free":"","case":"I","shelf":"50","box":"B"}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"drawing","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"No","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Britain","id":"x32019"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1896-1897","earliest":"1896-01-01","latest":"1897-12-31"},"association":{"text":"drawn","id":"x30545"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Purchased with Art Fund support","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"182","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"image","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"98","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"image","note":""},{"dimension":"Height","value":"185","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"sheet","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"100","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"sheet","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"'AUBREY BEARDSLEY'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"signature"}],"objectHistory":"This drawing was made as an illustration to the <u>Sixth Satire</u> of Juvenal, but remained unpublished until 1976.","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Drawing by Aubrey Beardsley, 'The Impatient Adulterer', unpublished illustration to the <i>Sixth Satire of Juvenal</i>","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Brian Reade, <i>Aubrey Beardsley</i>, London, 1967, Cat. no. 471(not illustrated).\r\n\r\nEd. Maas, Duncan and Good, <i>The Letters of Aubrey Beardsley</i>, London, 1967, p.263, p.264 note 1.\r\n\r\nSimon Wilson, <i>Beardsley</i>, Oxford, 1976\r\n\r\nStephen Calloway, <i>Aubrey Beardsley</i>, London, 1998, pp.179-80."}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"Unique","id":"THES48864"},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"penis","id":"x38340"},{"text":"curtains","id":"AAT37564"}],"contentConcepts":[{"text":"masturbation","id":"x40577"}],"contentLiteraryRefs":[""],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["E.338-1972"],"accessionNumberNum":"338","accessionNumberPrefix":"E","accessionYear":1972,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2026-05-12","recordCreationDate":"2007-03-08","availableToBook":false}}