A male and female standing figure both look left at a large face in the moon.
Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
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Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College

In this black ink drawing, a nude male and a female wearing a simple gown are standing in an undefined space. They both look to the left at a full moon in which a face looks back at them through bands of clouds. Next to the moon face is a single flower on a stem.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1943.643
People
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley, British (Brighton, England 1872 - 1898 Menton, France)
Title
The Woman in the Moon
Other Titles
Series/Book Title: Salome
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
drawing
Date
1893
Culture
British
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/297894

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Black ink and graphite on white wove paper
Dimensions
23 x 16.5 cm (9 1/16 x 6 1/2 in.)

State, Edition, Standard Reference Number

Standard Reference Number
Zatlin 864

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
Accession Year
1943
Object Number
1943.643
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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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. 24
  • A.M. Hammacher, Phantoms of the Imagination: Fantasy in Art and Literature from Blake to Dali, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (New York, NY, 1981), fig. 94, p. 112
  • Milly Heyd, Aubrey Beardsley: symbol, mask, and self-irony, Peter Lang (New York, NY, 1986), pp. 100-101; repr. fig. 24
  • Linda Gertner Zatlin, Aubrey Beardsley and Victorian Sexual Politics, The Clarendon Press (Oxford, England, 1990), p. 71, fig. 27
  • Jeffrey Wallen, "Illustrating Salome: Perverting the Text?", Word and Image (April 1992 - June 1992), vol. 8, no. 2, repr. fig. 4
  • Chris Snodgrass, Aubrey Beardsley: Dandy of the Grotesque, Oxford University Press (NY) and Oxford University Press (UK) (New York, NY and Oxford, England, 1995), fig. 6-16, pp. 276-280 and 282
  • Maryellen T. Mori, "The Quest for Jouissance in Takahashi Takako's Texts", The Woman's Hand: Gender and Theory in Japanese Women's Writing, ed. Paul Gordon Schalow, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA, 1996), repr. p. 216
  • Mark Samuels Lasner, "The Pursuit of the Rare: Three Early Beardsley Collectors", Gazette of the Grolier Club (2000), no. 51, p. 17, note 34
  • 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. 48-3, repr. (color)
  • Linda Gertner Zatlin, Aubrey Beardsley: A Catalogue Raisonné, Yale University Press (U.S.) (New Haven and London, 2016), vol. 2, no. 864, pp. 8, 11, 14-19, 48, repr. p. 16

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

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