SODOMA CERAMICS©2025

In the early 16th century, the Duke of Mantua commissioned Giulio Romano to paint erotic scenes to adorn the rooms of Palazzo Te, then under construction, where he intended to retreat to indulge in the pleasures of food, festivities, and sex.

These sketches were reproduced by Marcantonio Raimondi, an engraver and friend of Romano, who published them in the first book featuring explicit sexual images intended for commercial distribution.

Following censorship by the papacy, which led to the burning of the books and Raimondi's arrest, a renowned critic and poet of the time, Pietro Aretino, intervened to secure his release. Aretino composed a series of sonnets, known as "I Modi," to accompany a new edition of the censored engravings

A PILLAR OF EROTIC PAINTING

The modes have influenced erotic art for centuries, up to the French painter Paul Avril who produced a series of exquisitely neo-Michelangelo-esque ones and which are reproduced here on majolica with the traditional cobalt blue.

Added to this series is “Apollo and Cyparissus”, an example of homoerotic art also by Giulio Romano, probably commissioned by Aretino himself.

Dimensions 20 x 20 cm