Like so many other artists exploring the erotic side of their imagination, it was almost inevitable that Schoff would try his hand at this lesbian classic. His portfolio of just seven drawings plus a cover was never published, and shows signs of having been done fairly quickly; in many ways it is rather surprising that it has survived.

Pierre Louÿs’ Les chansons de Bilitis (The Songs of Bilitis) is a collection of erotic lesbian poetry first published in Paris in 1894, and one of the most successful literary frauds of all time; most of Louÿs’ early readers honestly believed that they were reading genuine translations of rediscovered ancient poetry found on the walls of a tomb in Cyprus, written by a woman called Bilitis who was a courtesan and contemporary of Sappho. Even when the deception was common knowledge, Les chansons de Bilitis continued to be a source of inspiration for readers and artists alike for many decades.