The Toilet, from The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope (c. 1895–96): Art, History and Details

The Toilet, from The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope (c. 1895–96) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Aubrey Beardsley (British, 1872–1898).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

In this drawing, Aubrey Beardsley illustrates an early scene in Alexander Pope’s satirical masterpiece The Rape of the Lock (1712) in which the heroine, Belinda, primps in her boudoir. Reflecting the poem’s emphasis on contrived rather than natural beauty, the drawing is densely layered with artifice. A view of an idyllic garden with a cupola-topped pavilion is glimpsed not through a window as it would first seem, but on a folding screen. The bejeweled bottles littering the table serve as emblems of Belinda’s vanity.

Object facts

• Title: The Toilet, from The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope
• Date: c. 1895–96
• Creator attribution: Aubrey Beardsley (British, 1872–1898)
• Culture: England, 19th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: pen and black ink with traces of graphite underdrawing
• Dimensions: Sheet: 25.6 x 17.4 cm (10 1/16 x 6 7/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - British
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1953.136

A detail from the museum

After a rapid rise to fame and notoriety, Aubrey Beardsley produced hundreds of drawings before falling victim to tuberculosis at the age of 25.

Collection credit

Dudley P. Allen Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Pope, Alexander. The Rape of the Lock: An Heroi-comical Poem in Five Cantos. London: Leonard Smithers, 1896.
• Marillier, H.C.. The Later Work of Aubrey Beardsley. New York: John Lane, 1920.
• Hind, Lewis C.. The Uncollected Work of Aubrey Beardsley. London: John Lane; New York: Dodd, Mead and Company,1925.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.