What’s new
Boney’s conquests
24th August 2021
The historian Frédéric Masson credited Napoleon Bonaparte with fifty-eight sexual conquests, and his generals followed his lead. Today’s new artist, Célestin Nanteuil, used his imagination to show them all hard at work, which you can see here. Enjoy!
I don’t know what got into me
19th August 2021
Sex and devilry in today’s new portfolio, Diabolico Foutro-Manie, an 1835 collection from Achille Devéria. Is ‘they made me do it’ the ultimate excuse? See all the little imps here.
The great J.M.W. comes to honesterotica
18th August 2021
Today’s new artist may surprise you, it’s none other than the great Joseph Mallord William Turner, he of the Temeraire and watery Venice. But his many sketchbooks also demonstrate his abiding interest in things more corporal – see some of this work now by clicking here.
A 1910 manual of positions
16th August 2021
Today’s new portfolio is a sweet collection of watercolours from 1910 by Peter Geiger, even more compelling than his printed portfolio of a year or so later. A sort of Joy of Sex but a century earlier! See them now by clicking here.
Yes – more Sardax!
15th August 2021
We had an enormously positive response from adding Sardax’s artwork to the site; now we can add to your pleasure with all the illustrations from his landmark, now almost impossible to find, 2006 The Art of Sardax. See all 78 wonderful images here. Enjoy!
Love à la Bécat
12th August 2021
Two new portfolios today from Paul-Émile Bécat, both illustrating novels by René Boylesve, but from opposite ends of Bécat’s career – the perfume of love on an Italian lake and the lovely Ninon learning her lessons in a park. That makes forty Bécat portfolios on the site! Enough yet?
The wonders of sex
11th August 2021
Today we have a fascinating insight into Eric Gill’s 1920s explorations into the art and mechanics of sex through his sketchbooks, conveniently hidden until after his death – see some of his wonderings and imaginings now by clicking here.
A portfolio named Desire
10th August 2021
A passionate, varied – and very red! – portfolio called Desire from today’s new artist, the Hungarian Istvan Prihoda. They’re enjoying themselves, we hope you do too. See his colourful paintings now by clicking here.
Classic Székely
9th August 2021
Good morning all you Székely lovers! No fewer than three new Alex Székely portfolios for you today – Mythologies, Gulliver, and the colourful pastel sequence Poème d’automne, which is here. What a treat!
Important recent updates
✨ Illustrator and portfolio lists
One of the most common requests we get (and the responses to the recent questionnaire confirm this) is that it would be really useful to have complete listings of all the artists and portfolios on the website – as of May 2026 728 artists and 2,003 portfolios!
So we’ve listened and heard … and by following this link you will find files with these listings in alphabetical order (and where there are several portfolios with the same name their artists will be in order too). The lists are in PDF format, so you can download, save and search them. They duplicate what you can already find in the artist and portfolio listings on the website, but if you’re really into erotic art and illustration and would like a quick ready reference, you should find these invaluable. Enjoy!
✨ Helping you to find your way around
You asked for it, we’ve done it – all the artists on the site now have a set of ‘Similar artists’ links at the end of their biography, so whether it’s bookplate artists, spanking artists, gay artists, whatever, you can cruise easily from artist to similar artist. Have fun!
✨ Hans-Jürgen Döpp, 1940–2025
Few people have shared their wisdom, experience – and wonderful collection of erotic art – more than Hans-Jürgen Döpp, who sadly died last year at the age of 84. For more than half a century Hans-Jürgen devoted himself to the study and collection of erotic art, not as a marginal curiosity or a private indulgence, but as an essential part of human culture. Through his work as a scholar, teacher, curator, author and collector, he helped establish erotic art as a serious field of artistic and historical enquiry. He was an enthusiastic supporter of honesterotica, sharing more than 200 of his portfolios with us, helping to make the website a unique resource of erotic art that would otherwise have been lost to the world. Read our tribute to Hans-Jürgen here.
✨ The difficult mirror
Artists, childhood, and the challenge of looking
At a time of growing concern about online child safety, we are very aware of how we handle the sensitive subject of depictions of children in art, especially ‘erotic art’. We have added an important Themes and Topics article here, which helps explore how artists over time have depicted naked children, and why it is as important to think seriously about what art is for and how we look at and experience it as about what is actually being depicted. Read the piece and see what you think.