Édouard-Henri Avril

Édouard-Henri Avril (21 May 1849 – 28 July 1928) was a French painter and commercial artist. Under the pseudonym Paul Avril, he was an illustrator of erotic literature.[1] His career saw collaboration with influential people like Octave Uzanne, Henry Spencer Ashbee and Friedrich Karl Forberg.

Édouard-Henri Avril
Cover of L'Ombrelle - Le Gant - Le Manchon illustrated by Avril (1883)
Born(1849-05-21)21 May 1849
Algiers, French Algeria
Died28 July 1928(1928-07-28) (aged 79)
Le Raincy, Paris, French Third Republic
NationalityFrench
EducationÉcole des Beaux-Arts
Known forIllustrator of erotic literature
Notable work
De figuris Veneris, Fortunio
AwardsLegion of Honour

Avril was a soldier before starting his career in art. He was awarded with the Legion of Honour for his actions in the Franco-Prussian War.

Life
Les charmes de Fanny exposés (plate VIII) from Fanny Hill is one of the most famous works of Avril

Avril was born in Algiers. His father was a colonel of the gendarmerie. Avril himself fought and was wounded in the Franco-Prussian War before starting his studies in art. He was awarded with the Legion of Honour on 31 May 1871 for injuries sustained during the war. The injuries resulted in retirement from his military career on 23 January 1872.[2]

Biographical material of his life is scarce due to the obscene nature of his work, and because he worked under a pseudonym of "Paul Avril".[3] His pseudonym can lead to a confusion with his brother,[1][4] who was named Paul-Victor Avril, and was also an artist and worked as an engraver.[4] Avril studied art in various Paris sex salons.

From 1874 to 1878 he was at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.[3][2] He worked for the illustrated newsmagazine Le Monde illustré in 1882.[4][5]

Having been commissioned to illustrate Théophile Gautier's novel Fortunio, he adopted the pseudonym "Paul Avril".[6] His reputation was soon established and he received many commissions to illustrate both major authors and the so-called "galante literature" of the day, a form of erotica. However, his reputation as a commercial illustrator of novels was established before he began illustrating the more underground erotic literature. These books were typically sold in small editions on a subscription basis, organised by collectors. Erotica of that time received very limited prints and sometimes were limited to only 100 or so copies, or were sold only within exclusive circles of collectors.

Because of the perceived obscenity of Avril and his works, it is difficult to assess the impact that his art might have had on the culture of the time.[3]

Avril died at Le Raincy, near Paris, in 1928.[7]

Works
Bookplate designed by Avril for erotica collector Henry Spencer Ashbee

Avril's major work were the illustrations in 1906 for De Figuris Veneris: A Manual of Classical Erotica. Another important work illustrated by Avril was John Cleland's Fanny Hill (also known as Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure), which was a significant and controversial publication of its time as it was the first novel to bring erotica to English literature. The book's edition illustrated by Avril includes Les charmes de Fanny exposés that is one of his better known pictures. He illustrated such works as Gustave Flaubert's Salammbô, Gautier's Le Roi Caundale,[1][3][8] Jean Baptiste Louvet de Couvray's Adventures of the Chevalier de Faublas, Mario Uchard's Mon Oncle Barbassou (scenes in a harem), Jules Michelet's The Madam, Hector France's Musk, Hashish and Blood, the writings of Pietro Aretino, and the anonymous lesbian novel Gamiani.[2][6]

Classicizing works illustrated by Avril include Oeuvres d’Horace (1887), Une nuit de Cléopâtre (1894), Daphnis et Chloé (1898), and Les sonnets luxurieux de l’Aretin (1904).[9] Avril might be best known for his sapphic, or lesbian, illustrations.[10]

Prolific erotica collector Henry Spencer Ashbee commissioned Avril to design a bookplate for him.[9] Avril worked with Octave Uzanne,[10][11] who after leaving the Société des Amis des Livres, which he found too conservative and too concerned with the reissue of old works, started two new bibliographic societies. The Société des Bibliophiles Contemporaines (1889–1894)[12] consisted of 160 people from literary circles, including Avril.[11]

List of works and editions illustrated
  • L'Éventail (1882)[10]
  • L'Ombrelle – Le Gant – Le Manchon (1883)
  • Fortunio (1883)[5]
  • Adventures of the Chevalier de Faublas (1884)[13]
  • Mon Oncle Barbassou (Scenes in a Harem) (1884)[5]
  • Fanny Hill (fr. 1887, eng. 1906)[5]
  • Oeuvres d’Horace (1887)[5]
  • The Mirror of the World (1888)[14]
  • Le Roi Caundale (1893)[5]
  • Une nuit de Cléopâtre (1894)[15]
  • The Life and Adventures of Father Silas (1896)[5]
  • Daphnis et Chloé (1898)[5]
  • Musk, Hashish and Blood (1899)[5]
  • Les Sonnets Luxurieux de l’Aretin (1904)[5]
  • Gamiani (1905)[5]
  • De Figuris Veneris: A Manual of Classical Erotica (1906)[5]
  • Salammbô (1906)[5]
  • Histoire de Saturnin (1908)
  • The Madam

Les Sonnets Luxurieux

  • Sexual intercourse in the missionary position
  • Les Sonnets Luxurieux (1892) de Pietro Aretino
  • Les Sonnets Luxurieux (1892) de Pietro Aretino
  • Les Sonnets Luxurieux (1892) de Pietro Aretino
  • Les Sonnets Luxurieux (1892) de Pietro Aretino
  • 19th-century erotic interpretation of Roman emperor Hadrian and Antinous engaged in anal intercourse, by Édouard-Henri Avril
  • From the essay "De Figuris Veneris" by Friedrich Karl Forberg (1770–1848). The placard in the lower right hand corner reads "Gnothi seauton", Socrates' admonition to his friends to "know yourself". 1860 ca.

Others

  • Missionary position
  • Interior illustration for De figuris Veneris from Friedrich Karl Forberg
  • Plate XVIII from "De figuris Veneris"
  • Plate XVII from De Figuris Veneris portrays a more extreme form of Avril's work.
  • Histoire de Saturnin 1908

See also

References
  1. "Paul Eduard Henry Avril – Biography and Offers – Buy and Sell Retrieved 01 August 2012". Kettererkunst.com. Retrieved 6 September 2012.
  2. "Paul Avril, i piaceri sfrenati dell'artista-soldato dell'Ottocento. Il video". 5 March 2018.
  3. Armitage, Helen. "Édouard-Henri Avril: The Master of 19th Century Pornography". Retrieved 3 October 2016.
  4. "Transits of Venus and Mercury as muses".
  5. "Paul Avril; Avril Paul".
  6. Tom Cutler (18 October 2012). Slap and Tickle: The Unusual History of Sex and the People Who Have it. Little, Brown Book Group. p. 31. ISBN 978-1-78033-836-1.
  7. "Paul Avril". Dictionary of Art & Artist. Retrieved 13 April 2015.
  8. Joseph A. Boone (18 March 2014). The Homoerotics of Orientalism. Columbia University Press. pp. 401–402. ISBN 978-0-231-15110-8.
  9. Blanshard, Alastair J. L. (2010). Sex: Vice and Love from Antiquity to Modernity. doi:10.1002/9781444323566. ISBN 978-1-4443-2356-6.
  10. Susan Hiner (6 June 2011). Accessories to Modernity: Fashion and the Feminine in Nineteenth-Century France. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 112–113, 242. ISBN 978-0-8122-0533-6.
  11. Willa Z. Silverman (2008). The New Bibliopolis: French Book Collectors and the Culture of Print, 1880–1914. University of Toronto Press. pp. 83–84. ISBN 978-0-8020-9211-3.
  12. Curinier, CE (1914). "Uzanne (Louis Octave)". Dictionnaire national des contemporains (in French). IV. Paris: Office Général d'Edition. pp. 66–67. OCLC 697614752.
  13. Michael Reynolds (17 June 2016). Creating Der Rosenkavalier: From Chevalier to Cavalier. Boydell & Brewer. p. 9. ISBN 978-1-78327-049-1.
  14. H.P. Bois (1892). Four private libraries of New York. Рипол Классик. p. 96. ISBN 978-5-87738-216-9.
  15. Mary E. Davis (15 October 2010). Ballets Russes Style: Diaghilev's Dancers and Paris Fashion. Reaktion Books. p. 109. ISBN 978-1-86189-885-2.
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