[CENSORED PLATES]. SOUTHERN AFRICA. Apron of the Houswanaas - Lot 137

Lot 137
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3000 - 3500 EUR
[CENSORED PLATES]. SOUTHERN AFRICA. Apron of the Houswanaas - Lot 137
[CENSORED PLATES]. SOUTHERN AFRICA. Apron of the Houswanaas or Boschismans women. Paris, Imprimerie Langlois, [ca. 1805]. 27 x 34.5 cm, in sheets, edges slightly browned. Three engraved and coloured plates, drawn by C.A. Lesueur engraved by the Lambert brothers under the direction of J. Milbert. These three scientific plates depict the genitalia of Khoisan or Bushman women of Southern Africa as observed by the naturalist Péron and the painter Lesueur during their visit to the Cape of Good Hope in 1803. They are numbered in Roman numerals as in the original edition of the atlas which has only 40 plates numbered 2 to 41 and thus captioned: Southern Africa. Apron of Houswanaas or Boschismans women. pl. LXXX - The woman is supposed to be standing, the life-size apron is free and hanging between the thighs. pl. LXXXI - In this figure, the woman is lying on her back, her thighs spread as well as the two lower lobes of the apron. (natural size). pl. LXXXII - Fig. 1. adult woman lying on her back, the apron is turned upside down and spread on the Mount of Venus. Fig 2. young girl seated, the apron of natural size and hanging freely between her thighs. These singularities caused the greatest stir in the scientific community. A few years later, the unfortunate Saartjie Baartman was delivered to the curiosity of the British and then the French, exhibited in Europe under the name of "Venus Hottentotus". The article that was to accompany these plates, which were never published, did not appear until 1883, in the Bulletin de la Société zoologique de France (8th volume, pages 15-33) with a Study on steatopygia and the apron of the Boschimane women by Dr Raphaël Blanchard.
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