Following his experience with Puder and its banning by the Berlin courts, it is hardly surprising that Stockmann chose to stick with safer publishing projects, following his 1914 cover and illustrations for Hoffmann’s story Das Grausen (The Horror) with illustrating the more domestic romance, Wilhelm Heinse’s Die Kirschen (Cherries) in 1919.

But he still had a vivid erotic imagination, and around 1919 produced an explicit set of drawings which, in the absence of any title contemporary with the artwork, we have for obvious reasons called Sünde, or Sin.

Some of the images follow clear influences, including Beardsley’s Salome and Rops’ nuns, but Stockmann adds original and telling detail, and his experimental use of colour breaks new ground in Germanic erotic art.

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.