Beauty or Monster?

The renewal of interest in hermaphrodites during the 18th century

Wolfgang Nedobity

1 Introduction

The 18th century has been considered a „century of the body“1 due to the large number of works
dealing with various aspects of anthropology culminating in Kant's key publication on the topic.2
In addition there was a renewed interest in the male body which made up for the “lack of early
modern curiosity about the male body by comparison with the glut of interest in the elusive,
secretive female body, which was so intimately connected with paternity and patriarchy.”3
This is particularly obvious in the anthropological approach to aesthetics as pursued by scholars
such as Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768) and Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805).
There was also a liberal approach to hermaphroditism in the arts and in art history made possible
through a change of legal and medical views due to the Enlightenment.
In the Middle Ages it was a widespread superstition that the acquisition of a second sex to one's
original sex is an indicator of close relations with Satan, and is thus counter to the general order of
nature that has divided humankind into female and male creatures only. Society pursued any
aberrations with capital punishment until the middle of the 18th century as we learn from the
research of Michel Foucault: “Or again, right at the start of the seventeenth century, two
hermaphrodites were burnt alive and their ashes scattered in the wind simply because they lived
together and so, it was assumed, must have made use of their sexes with each other.”4
The Kantian and Enlightenment conception of reason fought superstition at all levels, which led to a
number of legal reforms and new medical treatments. In addition, there had been a shift towards
humanity and sympathy in the moral philosophy of the time, which resulted in a more tolerant
attitude with regard to deviants, as we learn from the following passage: “Academicians and
physicians needed to domesticate this sexual monster and draw it under the aegis of scientific study
in order to render it less of a threat to social order, or at least to refashion it as a tool in the making
of their own expert status.”5 This is particularly true of art historians. Thus it appears to be well
justified that Michael Hagner claims an “aesthetic turn of monstrosities” for the Age of
Enlightenment.6

2 Marble Mania and the Development of Neoclassical Aesthetics

The obsession with antic marble sculptures during the 18th century fostered the interest in ancient
Greek mythology and in arguments underlining the attractiveness of these artifacts.
In his „Thoughts about copying Greek works“7, Winckelmann gave ample room to hermaphrodites
as ideals of human beauty. Their line of beauty is a combination of male and female traits such as

1 Hoffmann, T. (2015). Körperpoetiken. Zur Funktion des Körpers in der Dichtungstheorie des 18. Jahrhunderts.
Paderborn: Fink, p.10.
2 Kant, I. (1800). Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht. 2nd ed. Königsberg: Friedrich Nicolovius.
3 McClive, C. (2009). Masculinity on Trial: Penises, Hermaphrodites and the Uncertain Male Body in Early Modern
France. History Workshop Journal 68, p.45.
4 Foucault, M. (2016). Abnormal. Lectures at the Collège de France 1974-1975. London & New York: Verso, pp.67-
68.
5 Thompson, C.E. (2016). Questions of Genre: Picturing the Hermaphrodite in Eighteenth-Century France and
England. Eighteenth-Century Studies 49(3), p.409.
6 Hagner, M. (1999). Enlightened Monsters. In Clark, W. et al. (eds.). The Sciences in Enlightened Europe. Chicago &
London: The University of Chicago Press, p.196.
7 Winckelmann, J.J. (1756). Gedanken über die Nachahmung der Griechischen Werke in der Malerey und
Bildhauerkunst. 2nd ed. Dresden & Leipzig: Waltherische Handlung.

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strength and sturdiness on the one hand, and grace and softness on the other hand. In the passages
regarding the beautiful body of Greek sculptures, Winckelmann emphasizes the fact that since
objects of art are only concerned with the external surface, their beauty can only be appreciated if
the body is naked. He lists three examples of statues which allowed him to study the beauty of
hermaphrodites.8 Winckelmann argues that the “ancients, acted as a skillful gardener does, who
ingrafts different shoots of excellent sorts upon the same stock; and, as a bee gathers from many
flowers, so were their ideas of beauty not limited to the beautiful in a single individual […] but they
sought to unite the beautiful parts of many beautiful bodies.”9 The history of arts indicates clearly
that this principle had been followed during all periods of time up to the 18th century, thus creating a
standardized appearance of the hermaphrodite as it is described by MacLeod: “The many
hermaphrodites of different size and posture show that artists intended to express in this entity
comprised of both sexes an image of exalted beauty, and this image was ideal... Hermaphrodites
such as those produced by art have probably never been conceived in reality. All figures of this kind
have, in addition to the reproductive organs of our sex, virginal breasts, and their bodies and facial
appearance are generally feminine.”10 Since the anatomy of hermaphrodites was not familiar to the
population at large, artists chose to reveal the secret and satisfy the curiosity of the public: “The
famous Sleeping Hermaphrodite is one example of the way that this direct relationship between a
viewer and the object of its gaze is problematised. The hermaphrodite presents itself seductively to
the viewer with the effeminate back hips and legs nestling graciously against the mattress (an
edition by Bernini from the Sixteenth Century) upon which it rests. It is only as the viewer moves
around the sculpture enticingly that the figure’s secret is revealed: a semierect penis on an otherwise
naked female body.”11 Magalie Le Mens describes the playful intention of this sculpture as an
unexpected confrontation of the viewer: “Cette oeuvre agit comme un jeu, selon un effet de surprise
et de révélation, mais non pas simultanément dans l’esprit du regardeur et selon le même angle de
vue, mais lorsque celui-ci tourne physiquement autour d’elle.”12 The aesthetic qualities of such
sculptures were, however, not entirely unfamiliar, because certain similarities with other genres
existed: “As we have seen, this feminized male body had a venerable pedigree in antiquity:
hermaphrodite, androgyne, faun, all of which comprised overlapping categories on a spectrum that
fell within the genus ephebe.”13 According to Winckelmann, this androgynous ideal cannot only be
found with hermaphrodites, but also with pubescent boys – so-called ephebes - and castrati.14
Both in the literature and the fine arts of the Age of Enlightenment a renewed interest arose in the
portrayal of non-normative bodies and their erotic implications. While the copying of nature put its
emphasis on beauty, the portrayal of the extraordinary body aims at the arousal of sublimity. The
spectacular nature of hermaphrodites paired with a public curiosity in wonders provided them with
the status of a sublime body. Edmund Burke15 introduced the notion of sublimity in the aesthetic
discourse of the Enlightenment; later on, in 1790, it was refined by Immanuel Kant.16
While these authors concentrated upon the sublime experience of nature, Schiller found sublimity in

8 Winckelmann, J.J. (1764). Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums. Dresden: Waltherische Hof-Buchhandlung, p.368.
9 Winckelmann, J.J. (1972). History of Ancient Art. In Winckelmann, J.J. Writings on Art, ed. by David Irwin.
London: Phaidon, p.120.
10 MacLeod, C. (1998). Embodying Ambiguity. Androgyny and Aesthetics from Winckelmann to Keller. Detroit:
Wayne State University Press, pp.30-31.
11 Chapman, M. (2007). Architecture and Hermaphroditism: gender ambiguity and the forbidden antecedents of
architectural form. Conference Proceedings, Queer Space: Centers and Peripheries. Sidney: UTS, p.5. Retrieved
from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311652880
12 LeMens, M. (2019). Modernité Hermaphrodite. Art, histoire, culture. Paris: Éditions du félin, p.25.
13 Solomon-Godeau, A. (1997). Male Trouble: A Crisis in Representation. London: Thames & Hudson, p.202.
14 Winckelmann, J.J. (1764). Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums. Dresden: Waltherische Hof-Buchhandlung, pp.160-
161.
15 Burke, E. (1767). A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful. 5 th ed.
London: J. Dodsley.
16 Kant, I. (1978). Critique of Judgement. Ed. by J. H. Meredith. Oxford: OUP.

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the internal human nature, in particular in a strong independent body.17 A sublime body offers a
sensually overwhelming experience, even if it is a tragic one. The feeling of sublimity makes us
aware of the fact that two controversial natures are unified in us, such as reason and sensuality,
body and soul, as well as male and female elements: „We perceive, then, by the feeling of
Sublimity, that our spiritual condition is not necessarily molded according to our sensuous
condition, that the laws of nature are not necessarily also our own, and that we possess an
independent principle, independent of every sensuous emotion.“18 The rationality of the age,
however, required a more scientic approach. Alice Dreger talks about a “domestication of the
monster” by stripping the extraordinary body of its wonder and declaring it simply as pathological.19
The medical point of view was complemented by anthropological considerations pinpointing
possible implications for society. This new construction of the social function of the body opened a
novel artistic view on the subject leading to a new cultural standard.20
Both Schiller and Winckelmann were keenly interested in the cultural coding of the body and
published novel attempts of gendering the qualities and requirements of the human body. While
they confirm the predominance of the male body, they fancy also androgynity to a great extent;
Winckelmann for the fine arts and Schiller for male actors who require also grace when they are on
stage. The latter also refers to male authors who can feel like women when they use them as
protagonists in their work.21 Apart from this particular gender transgression, he believed in a
complementary gender role of corporal appearances which are the results of human architecture.22
The aesthetics of the human architecture were the subject of many philosophical endeavours. Their
main challenge consisted in defining the essence of human beauty. There was no doubt that the
respective effect of beauty depends on the ideal relation of the various parts of the body. The
increase of the effect of beauty upon the viewer or reader were obviously an important issue for
authors such as Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) or artists such as Anne-Louis Girodet-
Trioson (1767-1824).
A beautiful body as the epitome of perfection renders charm as a side-effect. Perfection can be
enhanced by a mixture of traits or – according to Schiller – by a „double nature“, which allows a
balance of otherwise autonomous forces.23 Nevertheless, no moral functions were assigned to the
beautiful body, a position that was shared both by Winckelmann and Johann Wolfgang Goethe
(1749-1832). In his thesis24 dealing with the animalistic and spiritual nature of human beings,
Schiller picks up the idea of Alexander Pope25 of man being the unfortunate hybrid of animal and
angel. A similar duality of the body exists between grace and beauty. David Pugh explains this
concept as follows: „In 'Über Anmut und Würde', after Schiller has introduced the notion of grace,
and as he approaches the exposition of the beautiful soul, which for many readers is the climax of
the treatise, he introduces a memorable and suggestive political metaphor. Grace, he tells us, rests
on a surprising coincidence of the demands of nature and reason, and can only be explained as a

17 Schiller, F. (1845). Upon the Sublime. In The Aesthetic Letters, Essays, and the Philosophical Letters of Schiller.
Translated, with an introduction by J. Weiss. Boston: Charles C. Little & James Brown, pp.239-264.
18 Schiller, F. (1845). Upon the Sublime. In The Aesthetic Letters, Essays, and the Philosophical Letters of Schiller.
Translated, with an introduction by J. Weiss. Boston: Charles C. Little & James Brown, p.247.
19 Dreger, A. (1998). Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
p.35.
20 Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. 2nd ed. New York & London: Routledge.
21 Schiller, F. (1845). Upon the Necessary Limits in the Use of Beautiful Forms. In The Aesthetic Letters, Essays, and
the Philosophical Letters of Schiller. Translated, with an introduction by J. Weiss. Boston: Charles C. Little & James
Brown, pp.149-184.
22 Schiller, F. (1793). Über Anmut und Würde. An Carl von Dalberg in Erfurth. Leipzig: G.J. Göschen.
23 Schiller, F. (1780). Versuch über den Zusammenhang der thierischen Natur des Menschen mit seiner geistigen.
Stuttgart: Cotta.
24 Ibid.
25 Pope, A. (1734). An Essay on Man, and other Poems. London: John Sharp, Epistle 1, lines 173-175.

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'Gunst' ('favor') shown by the latter to the former.“26
A variant of this dichotomy has been propagated by Lessing27, who follows the idea of Henry Home
that beauty can be transformed into charm through movement.28 Schiller maintains, however, that
even during sleep, a human body can be charming, although true beauty and grace is never
supposed to arouse desire: „Therefore, Home takes the concept of grace too narrowly, when he says
that, if the most charming person is at rest, and neither moves nor speaks, we lose sight of the
quality of charm, like colors in the dark. No, we do not lose sight of it, as long as we perceive those
lines upon the sleeping person, which a benevolent and mild mind formed; and precisely the most
treasured part of grace remains, that very part, which congealed demeanor into lines, and thus
reveals the preparedness of mind in beautiful emotions.“29 Schiller emphasizes that these two
qualities, however, are not equally distributed among the sexes: beauty is the domain of the male
body and grace can be found more frequently with the female body. The hermaphrodite as a hybrid
was expected to represent them equally. These qualities are shared both by sleeping persons and
lifeless sculptures as pieces of art.

3 The Scientific Discovery of Intersex

The Enlightenment can be characterized by a trend towards ambitious theorizing which led among
others to a philosophical morphology of issues concerning physiology and anatomy. Comparative
studies of the later field were exquisitely illustrated and published as anatomical atlases. The
German physician Albrecht von Haller (1708-1777) for instance, focused his interest on matters of
human embryological development, in particular the growth of the reproductive organs during the
formation of the foetus. There have also been first scientific attempts to investigate the phenomenon
of hermaphrodites such as the treatise by Jacob Giles (1686-1744).30 Right away from the preface,
Giles refers to the monstrous intrigues and natures of hermaphrodites; a common view that
gradually changed during the course of the century, finally leading to a situation, in which “there is
a ban on all sexual relations but no conviction for the fact of being a hermaphrodite or for the nature
of hermaphroditism.”31
Already in 1741 another treatise was published which questioned Giles's view: “What, but
Ignorance or Superstition, could persuade Men to imagine, that poor human Creatures (which were
only distorted in some particular Part, or had any thing unusual appearing about them, from some
morbid Cause affecting them, either in the Uterus, or after their Births) were Prodigies or Monsters
in Nature?”32 The author, James Parsons, was a fellow of the Royal Society in London, an
institution which attempted to clarify the question whether hermaphrodites do exist in real life at all:
“The question is taken up by the Royal Society on three occasions around 1740, and in 1750 the
case of Michel-Ann Drouart aroused considerable interest when she was exhibited as an example of
hermaphroditism to the medical profession.”33 Parsons assumes that the cause for the birth of a
hermaphrodite is a 'confusion of semina' at the time of conception, which renders a wide spectrum
of physiological variants.34
Elizabeth Reis investigated the divergence of sex development from the point of view of medical
26 Pugh, D. (2005). Schiller as Citizen of his Time. In Jane V. Curran & Christophe Fricker (eds:). Schiller's „On Grace
and Dignity“ in its cultural context. Essays and a new Translation. Rochester, N.Y.: Camden House, p.40.
27 Lessing, G.E. (1836). Laocoon; or the limits of poetry and painting. London: J. Ridgeway & Sons.
28 Home, H. (1762). Elements of criticism. 3vols. Edinburgh: Millar, Kincaid & Bell.
29 Schiller, F. (1992). On Grace and Dignity. Transl. by George Gregory. Hannover: Schiller Institute, p.388.
30 Giles, J. (1718). Tractus de Hermaphrodites; Or, A Treatise of Hermaphrodites. London: E.Curll.
31 Foucault, M. (2016). Abnormal. Lectures at the Collège de France 1974-1975. London & New York: Verso, p.68.
32 Parsons, J. (1741). A Mechanical and Critical Enquiry into the Nature of Hermaphrodites. London: J. Walthoe,
p.XVI f.
33 Friedli, L. 'Passing women' – A study of gender boundaries in the eighteenth century. In Rousseau, G.S. & Porter, R.
(eds) (1987). Sexual underworlds of the Enlightenment. Manchester: Manchester University Press, p.247.
34 Parsons, J. (1741). A Mechanical and Critical Enquiry into the Nature of Hermaphrodites. London: J. Walthoe, p.50.

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ethics and thus warns of the semantic drawbacks of the hermaphrodite myth: “The conditions once
known under the umbrella terms intersex and hermaphroditism are now generally being called
disorders of sex development in medical settings. The terms might seem synonymous, but in fact
there are significant differences with controversial consequences. Hermaphroditism, an older term
that can still be found in many medical writings, is vague, demeaning, and sensationalistic,
conjuring mythic images of monsters and freaks.”35

4 Hermaphroditism and Erotic Desire

Winckelmann was one of the first scholars who had the opportunity to see the excavations of
Pompei and Herculaneum on his visits from 1762 onwards. Among the artifacts on display there
was also a Roman fresco of Satyr and Hermaphrodite. Whitney Davis comments on it as follows:
“Whereas the satyr in his undiscriminating eroticism exemplifies unnatural lusts, supposedly the
Hermaphrodite attracts our undiscriminating aesthetic admiration, our recognition of all ideal
beauties.”36 As regards the sexual orientation of the hermaphrodite he claims: “Hermaphrodite as a
woman receives the love of men and loves as a woman – but as a man receives only male love. In
this sense the satyr's pursuit of Hermaphrodite is necessarily pederastic...”37 This fact explains also
the general attitude to be found in the eighteenth century when for instance an Angolan
hermaphrodite had been on display in London: “The juxtaposition of two kinds of deviance – same-
sex desire and racialized monstrous sexuality – served to refute hermaphroditism, yet also reminded
the viewer of the dangers that lurked in abnormal sex.”38
In the 18th century the term 'hermaphrodite' was frequently used as a derogatory code-word for
effeminate homosexuals, also referred to as 'macaronies', as the following quotation illustrates:
“But Macaronies are a sex
Which do philosophers perplex;
Tho' all the priests of VENUS' rites
Agree they are Hermaphrodites.”39
This poem was originally published in the Whitehall Evening Post under the title 'The Macaroniad;
or, the Priest Triumphant'.
One of the famous macaronies was Lord John Hervey (1696-1743), also nicknamed as 'Mr.
Fainlove', who became a frequent victim of satires full of insinuations such as the following: “But
though it would be barbarous to handle such a delicate Hermophrodite, such a pretty, little, Master -
Miss, in too rough a Manner; yet you must give me Leave, my Dear, to give you a little, gentle
Correction, for your own Good.”40 In this case one can assume that the term 'hermaphrodite' is also
an allusion to the bisexual orientation of the Lord. It is nevertheless a most appropriate label if one
presumes that Lord Hervey enjoyed what Mieli describes as the 'schizophrenic' feeling of an
underlying hermaphrodite being, because “...at a given moment in the life of a gay man, a satisfying
erotic relationship with a woman can contribute to launching the 'schizophrenic' trip. And the
'schizophrenic' experience, as we have seen, is (among other things) a transsexual perception, the
discovery of hermaphroditism.”41
Freud also refers to a psychosexual hermaphroditism of 'amphigenic inverts' which appears
35 Reis, E. (2007). Divergence or Disorder? The Politics of Naming Intersex. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine
50(4), p.535.
36 Davis, W. (2001). Homoerotic Art Collection from 1750 to 1920. Art History 24(2), p.269.
37 Davis, W. (2001). ibid, p.277, note 77.
38 Thompson, C.E. (2016). Questions of Genre: Picturing the Hermaphrodite in Eighteenth-Century France and
England. Eighteenth-Century Studies 49(3), p.395.
39 Anonymous. (1773). The Vauxhall Affray; or the Macaronies Defeated: Being A Compilation of all the Letters,
Squibs, & c. On both Sides of that Dispute. London: J. Williams, p.59.
40 D'Anvers, C. (1731). A Proper Reply To a late Scurrilous Libel ; intitled, Sedition and Defamation display'd.
London: R. Francklin, p.6.
41 Mieli, M. (2018). Towards a Gay Communism. Elements of Homosexual Critique. London: Pluto Press, p.200.

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independently of the anatomical one. It can be accompanied by a “parallel changeover of the
subject's other mental qualities, instincts and character traits into those marking the opposite sex.”42
This notion has certain roots in the 18th century, for instance in the work of the German philosopher
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799), as Robert Tobin points out: “Interestingly, Lichtenberg
assumes that one cause of femininity in men is found in 'the desire to please all girls, which
attempts to find its satisfaction in an approach of the masculine nature toward the feminine, and
thus in a certain hermaphroditism of the soul'.”43
This love beyond gender differences and its erotic implications had been expressed by Abraham
Cowley in his poem „Platonick Love“. Winckelmann quoted the relevant passage in one of his
letters to his lover Reinhold Freiherr von Berg44:
„I thee both as Man and Woman prize
For a perfect love implies
Love in all capacities“45
Winckelmann's obvious sexual inversion can thus be interpreted as a psychical hermaphroditism
since, as Mario Mieli puts it in present day words: “The hermaphrodite fantasy, dream and ideal
occupy a major place in the gay existential universe.”46

5 Works of Fine Arts Visualizing Sexual Ambiguity

Michel Foucault took great interest in the Grandjean case of 1765 which brought about a
controversy between the physician Champeaux and the lawyer Vermeil; the former considered all
stories about hermaphrodites as fables because he did not believe in a possible mix of sexes, while
the latter claimed the contrary.47 There is of course the fable of the nymph Salmacis who fused
bodily with the son of Aphrodite and Hermes as part of the ancient Greek mythology, but as a
matter of fact, the hermaphrodite has since then been the object of the male sexual imagination.
Sigmund Freud made the following observation in this respect: “The idea of a woman with a penis
returns in later life, in the dreams of adults: the dreamer, in a state of nocturnal sexual excitation,
will throw a woman down, strip her and prepare her for intercourse – and then, in place of the
female genitals, he beholds a well-developed penis and breaks off the dream and excitation. The
numerous hermaphrodites of classical antiquity faithfully reproduce this idea, universally held in
childhood...”48 This vision inspired some of the art of the 18th century as well; especially Ovid's
recounting of the myth49 rendered a great number of neoclassical representations.
These works of the fine arts usually show a young couple – Salmacis and Hermaphrodite – taking
the waters. The first one in this sequence seems to be an oil painting by the Venetian artist Giovanni
Antonio Pellegrini (1675-1741), produced in 1708. Further examples would be a painting of 1729
by Jean- Francois de Troy (1679-1752) and an undated work by Nicola Buonvicino (active in Rome

42 Freud, S. (2005). The Essentials of Psycho-Analysis. Selected, with an introduction and commentaries, by Anna
Freud. Translated from the German by James Strachey. London: Vintage Books, p.287. (German original first
published in 1905).
43 Tobin, R. (2000). Warm Brothers. Queer Theory and the Age of Goethe. Philadelphia: University of Pennsilvania
Press, p.179.
44 Derks, P. (1990). Die Schande der heiligen Päderastie. Homosexualität und Öffentlichkeit in der deutschen Literatur
1750-1850. Berlin: Verlag rosa Winkel , p.181.
45 Cowley, A.(1784). Platonick Love. In The Poetical Works of Abraham Cowley. 2nd ed. Edinburgh: The Apollo Press,
p.18.
46 Mieli, M. (2018). Towards a Gay Communism. Elements of Homosexual Critique. London: Pluto Press, p.209.
47 Champeaux, C. (1765). Réflexions sur les hermaphrodites relativement à Anne Grand-Jean, qualifiée telle dans un
mémoire de Maitre Vermeil, avocat au Parlement. Avignon: Jacquenod.
48 Freud, S. (2005). The Essentials of Psycho-Analysis. Selected, with an introduction and commentaries, by Anna
Freud. Translated from the German by James Strachey. London: Vintage Books, p.381. (German original first
published in 1908).
49 Robinson, M. (1999). Salmacis and Hermaphroditus: When two become one. Classical Quarterly 49(1), pp.212-223

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between 1772 and 1782) which was auctioned in 2007. The latter contributed a fresco to one of the
ceilings in the Galleria Borghese on the topic. Finally there has been a lost painting by Anne-Louis
Girodet-Trioson whose content has survived in a lithograph by Charles de Chatillon. Abigail
Solomon-Godeau provides the following interpretation of the work: “It is, perhaps, Girodet's
version of the story (lithographed by Chatillion) that is most provocative and psychologically
charged of the various Neoclassical versions...Body against body (and there is at least the
suggestion of anal penetration), and the open mouth of the fountain from which the water spews
accentuate the sexual subtext, while the 'impossibility' of Hermaphroditus's position has multiple
meanings.”50 As a matter of fact Gerald Vidal (1742-1801) had produced a very similar engraving of
the scene already in 1770.
Francois Boucher (1703-1770) produced a painting of a singular hermaphrodite in 1760, positioning
the subject with its back to the viewer and identifying it as a hermaphrodite only by the work's title.
This painting, inspired by the ancient Greek sculpture of the sleeping hermaphrodite, resembles in
setting, pose and erotic flair the 'l'Odalisque Brune', one of Boucher's most popular works. Some of
the sexually more explicit engravings were inspired by illustrations of medical publications51, such
as those of Jean-Michel Moreau le Jeune (1741-1814) entitled 'Garçon et fille hermaphrodites vue
et dessinés d'après nature par un des plus célébres artistes et gravés avec tour le soin possible pour
l'utilité des studieux'. There are two plates produced in Paris in 1773, which focus on the duplicity
of the genitals of single persons in a lush Rococo setting. Courtney E. Thompson published an
extensive analysis of the pictures with the following comment: “In contrast, for the Garçon et fille
hermaphrodites plates, Moreau uncharacteristically chose quasi-pornographic posing and
emphasized the body itself as spectacle. For Moreau, the hermaphrodititic body seems to have
necessitated a departure from the norm, a 'spectacularization' of the flesh, as it occupied the
uncertain space between the conventions of high art, the prurience of erotic art, and the utility of
scientific illustration, the function these images were intended to serve.”52
The portrayal of hermaphrodites released a cascade of artistic developments, innovations and
revolutions. The respective works of art were intended to break up moral norms and traditional
identities that had existed for centuries.

50 Solomon-Godeau, A. (1997). Male Trouble: A Crisis in Representation. London: Thames & Hudson, pp.155-156.
51 cf. Arnaud, G. (1750). Dissertation on Hermaphrodites. London: A. Millar, plates 1-4.
52 Thompson, C.E. (2016). Questions of Genre: Picturing the Hermaphrodite in Eighteenth-Century France and
England. Eighteenth-Century Studies 49(3), p.406.

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