Arthur Chaplin
1 album/9 artworks – Arthur Chaplin (1869 – 1935) was a French painter and the son of the renowned Charles Joshua Chaplin, forged a markedly different artistic path from his father’s lavish, rococo‑styled nudes and dreamy portraits of women. While publicly celebrated for his modest botanical studies, Chaplin’s private oeuvre reveals a much more erotic, homoerotic dimension. Largely concealed during his lifetime because of the prevailing taboos around homosexuality in fin‑de‑siècle Paris. At 19, Chaplin produced a personal manuscript (1888) containing over 110 water‑color illustrations of male nudes in intimate, mythologically inspired poses. He both authored and illuminated the work, employing delicate line work and vivid washes to explore his early fascination with eroticism. Though a pivotal moment in his career, the manuscript…
