![[AVRIL, Paul (1849-1929), signed 'Phall'.] Messe de Minuit, a series of 12 original monochrome watercolours mounted on card, [Paris, c.1900].](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2014/CKS/2014_CKS_10773_0023_001(avril_paul_signed_phall_messe_de_minuit_a_series_of_12_original_monoch115450).jpg?w=1)
![[AVRIL, Paul (1849-1929), signed 'Phall'.] Messe de Minuit, a series of 12 original monochrome watercolours mounted on card, [Paris, c.1900].](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2014/CKS/2014_CKS_10773_0023_002(avril_paul_signed_phall_messe_de_minuit_a_series_of_12_original_monoch115600).jpg?w=1)
![[AVRIL, Paul (1849-1929), signed 'Phall'.] Messe de Minuit, a series of 12 original monochrome watercolours mounted on card, [Paris, c.1900].](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2014/CKS/2014_CKS_10773_0023_000(avril_paul_signed_phall_messe_de_minuit_a_series_of_12_original_monoch115817).jpg?w=1)
Details
[AVRIL, Paul (1849-1929), signed 'Phall'.] Messe de Minuit, a series of 12 original monochrome watercolours mounted on card, [Paris, c.1900].
228 x 300mm. 12 monochromatic scenes depicting eroticised occultist interpretations of the various liturgies of the Catholic Mass, each with a caption describing the relevant liturgy, 10 signed 'Phall' in the lower corner. Contemporary quarter morocco with marbled boards and endpapers (lighty scuffed).
The late Enlightenment, with authors and philosophers such as Diderot, D'Holbach and, in particular, the Marquis de Sade, brought about a strong anti-religious and anti-clerical literary movement in France that was perpetuated in the 19th century by popular novelists Hector France (Les Cent Curés paillards, 1883), Michel Morphy (Les Mystères de la pornographie cléricale, 1884), and Léo Taxil (Les Maîtresses du Pape, 1884), among others. The scenes in the present album, attributable to the established erotic artist Édouard-Henri Avril - better known as Paul Avril - are a striking expression of this anticlerical movement: they depict deeply eroticised, blasphemous inversions of the Traditional Latin Mass celebrated by the Roman Catholic clergy (from 'L'Introit' to 'L'Oblation de l'hostie' and 'La benediction'). Inspired perhaps by Joris-Karl Huysman's description of a Black Mass in his classic novel of French Satanism, Là-Bas (1891), the images of intercourse, pederasty and, finally, zoophilia (with the black goat of Satan emerging triumphant in the final vignette), all revolving around the Christian altar, are still as powerful and as disconcerting today as they would doubtless have been when they were first produced.
228 x 300mm. 12 monochromatic scenes depicting eroticised occultist interpretations of the various liturgies of the Catholic Mass, each with a caption describing the relevant liturgy, 10 signed 'Phall' in the lower corner. Contemporary quarter morocco with marbled boards and endpapers (lighty scuffed).
The late Enlightenment, with authors and philosophers such as Diderot, D'Holbach and, in particular, the Marquis de Sade, brought about a strong anti-religious and anti-clerical literary movement in France that was perpetuated in the 19th century by popular novelists Hector France (Les Cent Curés paillards, 1883), Michel Morphy (Les Mystères de la pornographie cléricale, 1884), and Léo Taxil (Les Maîtresses du Pape, 1884), among others. The scenes in the present album, attributable to the established erotic artist Édouard-Henri Avril - better known as Paul Avril - are a striking expression of this anticlerical movement: they depict deeply eroticised, blasphemous inversions of the Traditional Latin Mass celebrated by the Roman Catholic clergy (from 'L'Introit' to 'L'Oblation de l'hostie' and 'La benediction'). Inspired perhaps by Joris-Karl Huysman's description of a Black Mass in his classic novel of French Satanism, Là-Bas (1891), the images of intercourse, pederasty and, finally, zoophilia (with the black goat of Satan emerging triumphant in the final vignette), all revolving around the Christian altar, are still as powerful and as disconcerting today as they would doubtless have been when they were first produced.
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