AUBREY VINCENT BEARDSLEY (BRITISH, 1872-1898)

This drawing is an illustration for A History of Dancing From the Earliest Ages to our own Times, from the French of Gaston Vuillier, London, 1898 and was commissioned by William Heinemann in the spring of 1897 as part of a delux edition limited to only 35 copies and completed by August. It was executed when Beardsley was already nearly bedridden with tuberculosis. The drawing, inspired by Ingres' Madame Rivière, imitates the style of earlier aquatints with its use of pencil and ink and wash to add shading and modelling. It was much celebrated upon execution, Beardsley himself writing in a letter to Herbert Pollitt, 2 September 1897 (Letters, loc.cit.), 'It is Arbuscula and beyond all words' and Heinemann, on receipt of the work, wrote, 'My dear Beardsley, Why it's perfectly amazing and fascinating – "the dandiest thing" you've ever done. Copperplate – of course – nothing less, indeed not. But I must come myself and tell you how beautiful it is, how much I like it...'.

The drawing was published in 1898 as a photogravure since this method would best capture the subtle pencil and wash shading. Other drawings that use this technique of light wash include, Design for the book-plate of the poetess Olive Custance, afterwards Lady Alfred Douglas, Reade, op.cit., no. 493 and illustrations to Mademoiselle de Maupin, Reade, op.cit. nos. 487-492. Beardsley felt more ill and isolated living away from London at this time and instead of first hand sources for his decorative passages he relied on books and his memories. The window treatment in the present drawing, the bookplate for Olive Custance and The Lady with the monkey (Zaitlin nos. 1077, 1050) recalls the curtains at the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, in the banqueting room and the music room galleries. Arbuscula's face relates to the type of face in the illustrations for Mademoiselle de Maupin.

Arbuscula was a celebrated female dancer in pantomines, whom Cicero speaks of in 54 B.C. as having given him great pleasure and who is also mentioned in Horace's writings as having been hissed and booed at by an audience.