Lucian of Samosata. De Hetaerensgespraeche des Lukian.

£30,000 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books

one of 50 copies A fine example of a scarce and early work illustrated by Gustav Klimt. Published in 1907, this erotic compilation represents a perfect pairing of Klimt's drawings with Josef Hoffmann's Wiener Werkstätte design to create one of European Jugendstil's most beautiful books. The text for the work is Lucian's Dialogues of the Courtesan (De Hetaerensgespraeche des Lukian), translated here by the Viennese writer, Franz Blei. The fifteen conversations from the Hellenic satirist cover themes of seduction, infidelity and jealousy and previous German translations omitted the fifth conversation as it is homoerotic. In this translation, Blei changed the order of the dialogues and gave them more provocative titles, such as 'The Horrors of Marriage', 'The Voluptuousness of Spanking', as well as including the lesbian conversation (number VI). Klimt's drawings are considered to be the 'epitome of erotic refinements' (Bisanz-Prakken). The fifteen compositions were created by Klimt in the period from 1904 to 1906. Two-thirds of the drawings can be dated to 1904. This is important in that Klimt switched from wrapping paper sheets to lighter Japanese paper this year, as he replaced the soft chalk with the hard pencil. Gustav Klimt created some of the works in the context of the first version of Water Snakes II (1904–1907): While Klimt contented himself in the painting with the hint of eroticism, he went far beyond the taboo limit of his time in the preparatory studies and drawings

• Binding: Hardcover

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