In and Out of the Marital Bed: Seeing Sex in Renaissance Europe

This book explores images whose sexual content has all too often been either ignored or denied.  Each chapter is devoted to a place that artists associated with sexual activity or desire: the bed, the dressing area of the home, the window and doorway, the bath, and the street.  By examining both canonical works, such as Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait and Petrus Christus’ Goldsmith’s Shop and long-neglected objects, such as combs, badges, and bathhouse murals, and by investigating a wide range of sexualities—same-sex desire, adultery, marriage, courtship, and prostitution—Wolfthal demonstrates how illicit forms of sexuality were linked to the “chaste sexuality” of marriage.