This portfolio of six illustrations, inspired by the original plates in Sade’s Justine and Juliette, was published in Berlin by Leonhardt Hutzfeld around 1900, in a very limited hand-coloured edition. The handwritten texts describe the scenes depicted in the drawings. The anonymous artist has chosen some of the more scandalous scenes in Sade’s transgressive texts, so we have here bestiality, coprophilia and blood-letting flagellation among other perversities.

Interestingly, three of the texts – the third, fifth and sixth – show that the artist was relatively unaware of the original narrative relating to the scenes depicted, and so has mismatched image and text. The text of the sixth engraving, for example, names Saint-Fond, who appears only in the French section of Juliette, whereas the scene depicted clearly shows Juliette and her companions at Vespoli’s madhouse in Italy.

Not a portfolio for the faint-hearted.

We are very grateful to Hans-Jürgen Döpp for these images; Hans-Jürgen, the compiler of many books on erotic art, curates the Venusberg online gallery and bookshop which you can find here.