Frontispiece to Chopin’s Third Ballade

The Third Ballade was one of the greatest compositions by the Polish pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin who died in 1849 at the age of 39. While an initial viewing might suggest a simple equestrian portrait, there is an implicit subtext of female domination in the woman’s mastery of the horse. Her determined expression, and the disparity between the horse and rider, reinforce this. Although never published in his lifetime, this design was used to illustrate Beardsley’s obituary in The Studio in 1898. 

Aubrey Beardsley was the young dandy who scandalized and titillated late-Victorian London. This work was created in 1895, the year Beardsley’s friend and collaborator, Oscar Wilde, was arrested on charges of sodomy. Like the writer, whose play Salome he had illustrated, Beardsley cultivated an outré public image and was as renowned as a well-dressed dilettante as he was an artist. Beardsley at the age of 25 died from tuberculosis (like Chopin).

P.S. Here you will find more of the mesmerizing black and white works of Aubrey Beardsley and his story!