Two drawings by the British Art Nouveau graphic artist Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898). Beardsley was haunted with romantic visions of evil, of the erotic, the decadent and the femme fatale. These pictures were designed for Oscar Wilde’s play Salome. Salome was the daughter of Herod Philip and Herodias. According to the legend, she danced to obtain the head of John the Baptist. You can find various images and sources about Beardsley on the Victorian Web. By the way, the American band Autumn Tears used some of these drawings for the booklet of their album “Love poems for dying children”.
