The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam on Tuesday placed on display a rare condom from about 1830, featuring an erotic print of a nun and three clergymen in provocative poses.
The contraceptive, which is probably made from a sheep’s appendix, might be a souvenir from a brothel, of which only two known copies exist, the museum said in a statement.
The prophylactic “depicts both the playful and the serious side of sexual health,” it said.
Photo: AFP
The museum is to display the sheath as part of an exhibition called “Safe Sex?” on 19th century prostitution and sexuality.
The print on the condom shows a nun lifting up her skirt and pointing her finger at three clergymen, who also have their genitals on full display.
“It shows that printmaking had many applications and offers insight into sexuality and prostitution in the 19th century,” the museum said.
The phrase “This is my choice” is written along the sheath in French, which the museum said is a reference to the Pierre-Auguste Renoir painting The Judgment of Paris, which depicts the Trojan prince Paris judging a beauty contest between three goddesses.
The Rijksmuseum said the condom came from an era where sex was “fraught with fears of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases — especially syphilis.”
“This is the first example in the Rijksmuseum collection of a print on a condom,” the museum said.
The condom is on display until the end of November.
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
With a monthly pension barely sufficient to buy 15 eggs or a small bag of rice, Cuba’s elderly people struggle to make ends meet in one of Latin America’s poorest and fastest-aging countries. As the communist island battles its deepest economic crisis in three decades, the state is finding it increasingly hard to care for about 2.4 million inhabitants — more than one-quarter of the population — aged 60 and older. Sixty is the age at which women — for men it is 65 — qualify for the state pension, which starts at 1,528 pesos per month. That is less than US$13
RSS