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Salome stares at the viewer, her breasts and midriff bare, while a gnome plays a stringed musical instrument.

In this black ink drawing, Salome performs a belly dance, leaning to her left with her arms tucked behind her back. She stares directly at the viewer with a piercing gaze. Her peeled-back robe exposes her bare breasts and midriff, a black sash across her torso, and puffy, shear-fabric pantaloons below. In the bottom right corner of the image, a hideous gnome with feathery hair plays a bizarre stringed musical instrument.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1943.634
People
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley, British (Brighton, England 1872 - 1898 Menton, France)
Title
The Stomach Dance
Other Titles
Series/Book Title: Salome
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
drawing
Date
1893
Culture
British
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/297866

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Black ink and graphite with corrections in white gouache on white wove paper
Dimensions
22.6 x 16.6 cm (8 7/8 x 6 9/16 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: Beardsley's monogram at lower right
  • inscription: Verso, graphe: 4 / 3 [encircled] / The Stomach Dance / from Salome / 14 [encircled]; blue crayon: 8 [encircled]

State, Edition, Standard Reference Number

Standard Reference Number
Zatlin 872

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
Accession Year
1943
Object Number
1943.634
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT BY THE TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION TO THE HARVARD ART MUSEUMS.

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Publication History

  • Joseph Pennell, Catalogue of an Exhibition of Original Drawings by Aubrey Beardsley, exh. cat., Brooklyn Museum (Brooklyn, NY, 1923), no. 29
  • Linda Gertner Zatlin, Aubrey Beardsley and Victorian Sexual Politics, The Clarendon Press (Oxford, England, 1990), p. 94, fig. 48
  • Lionel Lambourne, The Aesthetic Movement, Phaidon (London, England, 1996), repr. p. 200
  • Mark Samuels Lasner, "The Pursuit of the Rare: Three Early Beardsley Collectors", Gazette of the Grolier Club (2000), no. 51, p. 17, note 34
  • Allison Pease, Modernism, Mass Culture, and the Aesthetics of Obscenity, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge, 2000), p. 132, repr. p. 133 as fig. 23
  • Chikashi Kitazaki and Mina Oya, ed., Between Reality and Dreams: Nineteenth Century British and French Art from the Winthrop Collection of the Fogg Art Museum, exh. cat., National Museum of Western Art (Ueno, 2002), cat. no. 48-7, repr. (color)
  • Stephan Wolohojian, ed., A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press (U.S.) (New York, 2003), fig. 159, under cat. no. 139
  • Penley Knipe and Miriam Stewart, "Behind the 'Blot'" Technical Notes on the Drawings of Aubrey Beardsley, Master Drawings (Winter 2015), LIII, no. 4, pp. 523-530, p. 528, repr. p. 528 as fig. 9 and fig. 10 (detail)
  • Linda Gertner Zatlin, Aubrey Beardsley: A Catalogue Raisonné, Yale University Press (U.S.) (New Haven and London, 2016), vol. 1, p. xv, vol. 2, no. 872, pp. 10, 11, 21, 32, 35-37, 48, 89, repr. p. 36

Exhibition History

  • An Exhibition of Original Drawings by Aubrey Beardsley, Brooklyn Museum, 12/19/1923 - 01/31/1924; Milwaukee Art Institute, 10/01/1924 - 10/30/1924; Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, 11/01/1924 - 11/30/1924; Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, Rochester, 11/29/1924 - 12/31/1924
  • Between Reality and Dreams: Nineteenth Century British and French Art from the Winthrop Collection of the Fogg Art Museum, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 09/14/2002 - 12/08/2002
  • 32Q: 3440 Middle East, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 09/04/2021 - 12/13/2021

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu