Julius Klinger’s Sodom

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The more I look at the work of Austrian artist Julius Klinger (1876–1942), the more I like what I see. This Pinterest sample shows his versatility, equally at home with detailed illustration, often with a Beardsley-like quality, as he was with more Modernist design. Sodom (1689) (aka The Farce of Sodom, or The Quintessence of Debauchery) is the notorious Restoration drama attributed to John Wilmot, the second Earl of Rochester, which is here illustrated by Klinger for an edition privately published in Leipzig in 1909. The play is one of the most flagrantly outrageous works in the English language, with a cast of characters that includes Bolloxinion, the King of Sodom, Cuntigratia, his Queen, and so on; you can see parts of it performed in The Libertine (2004) with Johnny Depp playing Rochester, and taking the role of Bolloxinion.

Klinger produced 16 illustrations in all. His picture of Salomé gets linked to this series on a number of websites but I’ve seen other sites that list it as a separate piece. Since Salomé isn’t mentioned anywhere in Sodom I’d also be inclined to keep them separate.

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Previously on { feuilleton }
Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration #21
Julius Klinger’s Salomé

2 thoughts on “Julius Klinger’s Sodom”

  1. Yes, he shares that early 20th-century stylisation with Erté although he had a wider range.

    The snake woman is an odd one, looks at first glance like Salammbô with the serpent but she’s wearing an Egyptian headdress. It does indeed look like a Tarot card.

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