Late London: City of Seduction
Visitors to the Museum of London on Valentine's night will get to see a special exhibition - a set of erotic tiles dating from the 18th century and discovered in a London pub in the 1960s.
Given the subject matter, they have been kept “in the deep, dark depths of the museum’s store ever since,” the curators said.
Most of the tiles show couples having sex in various positions, while one shows a woman beating a man’s naked buttocks with a switch. Another appears to show someone being lowered in a basket onto a lover below.
Experts at the museum said the clothing and furniture in the reliefs date them to the mid-18th century. They are made out of plaster of Paris and are relief moulded. While not an expensive process, the subject matter may have made them more costly for the buyers.
The curator said such erotic material “was widely available in the 18th century, if one knew where to go and had the means to acquire it,” yet added it was “very rare for them to survive”.
She could only speculate on why they were in the pub, saying they could have decorated the walls if the room had been used as a brothel or a gentleman’s private club. “We don’t know much about these objects, it’s enthralling,” she said.
You can see them HERE. NSFW, naturally.
Given the subject matter, they have been kept “in the deep, dark depths of the museum’s store ever since,” the curators said.
Most of the tiles show couples having sex in various positions, while one shows a woman beating a man’s naked buttocks with a switch. Another appears to show someone being lowered in a basket onto a lover below.
Experts at the museum said the clothing and furniture in the reliefs date them to the mid-18th century. They are made out of plaster of Paris and are relief moulded. While not an expensive process, the subject matter may have made them more costly for the buyers.
The curator said such erotic material “was widely available in the 18th century, if one knew where to go and had the means to acquire it,” yet added it was “very rare for them to survive”.
She could only speculate on why they were in the pub, saying they could have decorated the walls if the room had been used as a brothel or a gentleman’s private club. “We don’t know much about these objects, it’s enthralling,” she said.
You can see them HERE. NSFW, naturally.