Skid Roche

Originally uploaded by Thomas Roche

Interesting article in the Telegraph on Victorian Erotica:

“Ever wondered what our great grandparents got up to behind closed doors? A new collection of erotica leaves little doubt, says Guy Kennaway.”

“‘I bought my first erotic photograph in the mid-1980s,’ Danny Moynihan tells me. ‘I had come across some photos of Austrian origin of rather portly looking ladies in petticoats playing with sex toys. I thought they were rather amusing.’

“Moynihan is an artist and a curator. He has collaborated frequently with his friend Damien Hirst and has written a novel - soon to be released as a film - satirising the art world. He is also the owner of one of the world’s largest collections of vintage erotica.

“‘At the time I was buying and selling 20th-century photographs with the art dealer Paul Kasmin,’ he explains. ‘In those days photos didn’t really exceed $5,000, though we did own a Violin d’Ingres by Man Ray which we sold to the Getty for $10,000, but that was an exceptional piece.’”

“So presumably, were the dozen or so pictures that started Moynihan’s collection of nearly 500 often explicit photographs, many of which decorate the walls of his Chelsea home, where I have come to meet him.”

Read more.

Image: Nu féminin allongé Amélie, by Félix-Jacques Moulin, from Wikipedia