Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans with 15 Illustrations by Gustav Klimt, 1907

Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans tells stories from the lives of highly cultivated sex workers (so-called hetaerae) in ancient Greece. In a partly humorous manner, the book’s 15 dialogues treat topics such as homosexuality, jealousy and corporal punishment, but also the women’s everyday worries. The author Lucian of Samosata wrote the text around 160 AD. He is considered one of the most important satirists of Greek Antiquity. This luxury volume designed according to Jugendstil principles was released by the Leipzig-born publisher Julius Zeitler in 1907. The writer and editor Franz Blei (1871–1942) translated the original Greek text into German, while the painter and graphic artist Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) contributed 15 erotic drawings to illustrate the 15 dialogues. These were not created specifically for the publication, however. Klimt’s erotic graphic works, reproduced as collotype prints, show or hint at sexual acts such as masturbation or lesbian love. The cover was designed by Josef Hoffmann (1870–1956) of the Wiener Werkstätte. The total number of copies of the publication, which was released in several versions, amounted to 450, which illustrates the edition’s in every respect exclusive and extraordinary character.

MR, 2022