Lot Essay
Andrew Causey (op. cit., pp.50-51) comments that 'the appearance in Burra's art of skulls and skeletons reflects not only the interests of Conrad Aiken [the surrealist, American poet] but also Burra's discovery of the macabre elements in the Flemish symbolism of James Ensor and Félicien Rops. This came throught the Surrealist magazines, especially Variétés which was published in Brussels; in the case of Rops it can be linked to Burra's reading of Huysmans and of recent books on Rops such as Mac Orlan's of 1928. Peterson's study of Aiken, which was based on conversations, records the poet's interest in Flaubert, who 'could not see a beautiful woman without seeing her skeleton' and notes his following Eliot's admiration for Webster, of whom Eliot had written that he was 'much possessed by death/and saw the skull beneath the skin'; Peterson also describes Aiken's delight in a dinner-jacketed skeleton by Rops, whose scatalogical designs had a grotesque humour that delighted Burra'.