97 - [CURIOSA] BEARDSLEY, Aubrey, and ARISTOPHANES. Lysistrata.

[CURIOSA] BEARDSLEY, Aubrey, and ARISTOPHANES. Lysistrata. A rare and sought-after first German edition, limited to 400 copies, illustrated with Aubrey Beardsley’s 8 famous erotic compositions. Privatdruck [Vienna, Fritz Freund], 1905. In-4 (304 x 240 mm), publisher’s cream-colored cardboard binding, front cover adorned with the title in gold lettering. [64] pp. and 8 plates. Some soiling on the cardboard binding, which is slightly yellowed at the margins; cracks beginning at the spines; headbands discreetly re-glued. Clandestine edition, the first in German, illustrated with 8 erotic compositions by Aubrey Beardsley printed on Japanese paper and mounted on thick anthracite-gray sheets. Limited edition of only 400 copies on Pannekoek Dutch laid paper (no. 269). Aubrey Beardsley (1872–1898), a leading figure among fin-de-siècle dandies, was abruptly dismissed in April 1895 from his position as art director of the magazine *The Yellow Book*, after being wrongly implicated in the scandal surrounding Oscar Wilde’s trial. These erotic compositions were commissioned in 1896 by the London publisher Leonard Smithers, who had approached him to create a new magazine, *The Savoy*. Inspired by Greek ceramics and Japanese shunga prints, Beardsley considered these illustrations to be his finest work. Provenance: From the library of the Austrian publisher and erotica collector Dr. Rudolf Ludwig, with his pen-and-ink bookplate designed by the famous Decadent artist Franz von Bayros (1866–1924), affixed to the front endpaper. A copy in perfect condition, with the interior as fresh as new.