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Messalina and her Companion

Aubrey Beardsley (1872–1898)

Tate

Messalina and her Companion
Messalina and her Companion
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Image credit: Tate

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Beardsley produced this image as an illustration for an edition of the satirist Juvenal's (AD60?-140) lewd and salacious text, the Sixth Satire, privately printed by Leonard Smithers. It was first published as an independent image in 1897, in Aymer Vallance's The Second Book of Fifty Drawings, erroneously titled Messalina Returning Home. Messalina (d.AD48) was the wife of the Roman emperor Claudius (10BC-AD54). She was notorious for her sexual appetite and Juvenal describes her nightly excursions from the Imperial Palace to work as a whore in a local brothel.

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Title

Messalina and her Companion

Date

1895

Medium

Graphite, ink and watercolour on paper

Measurements

H 27.9 x W 17.8 cm

Accession number

N04423

Acquisition method

Presented by A.L. Assheton 1928

Work type

Drawing

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Artist or maker

Aubrey Beardsley

1872–1898

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