Historical Erotica Collection to be Auctioned at Christie's

The largest private collection of historical erotica, The Gérard Nordmann Library, is going on the auction block next week at Christie's in Paris. The catalogue for the auction is available on line, but the web site informs that "because of its graphic sexual images, the catalogue appears online without illustrations."

It seems unbelievable that in 2006 a grown man is incapable of writing an article about erotic art without resorting to tittering puns (and sexist innuendo) but Clive Aslet in the Telegraph nudges and winks his way through the collection, making us midly embarrassed for him, and sad that so little has changed in the more than 250 years since much of this work was created.

For the rest of us who can't afford the estimated 250,000 pounds that one of the pieces is expected to fetch, there's always the Kinsey Institute's collection, or the Rare Erotica blog where everything is digital, and everything is free.

Read more - Telegraph: Erotic sale of the century (via)

Read more - Christie's: Gérard Nordmann Library of Historical Erotica, Part I