Parkstone International

the first decades of erotic photography were essentially French.

photography was first developed in France

this French particularity and specificity lessened throughout the 20th century and has now completely disappeared.

all forms of art have been at the service of eroticism from the beginning.

painting of the time, albeit in a more realistic, though simultaneously cruder, manner.

The Treaties of the Bedroom there is a conversation between the Emperor and one of his mistresses, a simple young girl:

‘The Yellow Emperor asks the simple young girl: My spirit is listless and lacking in substance; I live constantly in fear and my heart is full of sadness. What can I do to cure myself? The young girl replies quite simply: “All human weaknesses come from an unhappy union of bodies during the sexual act. As water wins in the fight against fire, so woman gains in the fight against man. Those who are skilled in pleasure are like good cooks who know which five spices to add to a soup.”

He observed it with the mind of a savant and loved it with the soul of an artist.

Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506),

Achaemenid empire. At the head of each group is a courtier, possibly a satrap – the governor of a province who was always chosen from one of the leading aristocratic families – in ceremonial Persian dress with a high tiara. The different nations are depicted in approximately the same order as that of the kingdoms composing the empire on official inscriptions of the Achaemenid kings.

When they arrived on the Iranian plateau, the Iranians did not have their own written language.