Netherlands: an Amsterdam museum exhibits a French condom in animal matters around two centuries

Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum has been exhibiting an original piece since Tuesday, June 3: a rare condom that dates from around 1830, adorned with an erotic engraving that a nun and three ecclesiastics represent in provocative poses.

I bought an auction 1,000 euros six months ago, this almost bicentennial contraceptive is probably made of a sheep appendix. It could be a memory of a French brothel and more particularly Parisian.

“Testifies the multiple applications of engraving art and offers an overview of sexuality and prostitution in the nineteenth century,” the museum said.

The condom is part of an exhibition on prostitution and sexuality in the 19th century. The engraving in the condom represents a seated nun, separate legs, raising its skirt and pointing to one of the three ecclesiastics, whose genitals are also exposed.

A reference to the prison trial

According to Joyce Zelen, conservative of the Rijksmuseum interviewed by The Guardian, the composition of the engraving is an allusion to the Greek myth of the prison trial, in which Prince Trojan is invited to choose the most beautiful of the three goddesses between Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. “That is why we believe that the one who acquired the condom was quite sophisticated and educated,” she says.

“In the 1830s, when this condom was manufactured, its use was still frowned upon, especially for the Church,” Joyce Zelen prosecution. “We sold them mainly under the mantle in brothels or hairdressers, even if we find testimonies of luxury stores that offer custom -made sewing services.”

The condom “represents the playful and serious side of sexual health,” adds the Rijksmuseum. “The search for pleasure is juxtaposed to fear of STDs, particularly syphilis, and unwanted pregnancies.”

As The Guardian recalls, the condoms were made of linen, animal membranes or even turtle shells before the invention of the rubber vulcanized in 1839. In other words, the protection they offered against sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis or against pregnancies was very relative.