As a child, 10 years old maybe, I was leafing through a history book on Napoleon and I was struck by this one particular image by Brasselat in which he depicted the moment Napoleon rejected his wife Joséphine. The occasion was described as a formality, but there is nothing formal about Brasselat's picture. Instead we see a Napoleon standing like a statue, holding a candle up in the air like a stick of dynamite gushing fire, while a fainted Joséphine lay on the floor in the arms of the Prefect Bausset. Although the picture can hardly be described as erotic, there is a certain sexual content. Not just in the way the Prefect holds Joséphine in his arms, but in the candle symbolizing the virility of a Napoleon whose reputation had been damaged by rumours about his sexual incompetence. The candle would end all that, at least that is what Brasselat must have thought. Apart from the many political caricatures, most erotic illustrations of the 19th and 18th Century show us the rich and powerful having sex in castles and landhouses. The concept of linking sex to glamour seems to be a very old one. The candle, being one of the few light sources available in that era, naturally shows up in a lot of work, but almost never without a reason. Mostly we see candles being used as dildos, or as practical instruments to check whether your lover actually farted when you wanted her to. (The Marquis de Sade would feed his lovers candy filled with anise to get just the right odeur). This may not be your cup of tea, but it was popular then, like dropping wax from a burning candle on uncovered private parts has become almost a household cliché in contemporary pornography. With our pragmatic minds we would just like to think of candles in 19th and 18th Century erotic art as plain phallic symbols, but they must have been much more than that. Picture yourself in a Victorian landhouse, waiting for everybody to go to sleep so that you can be on your way to your secret lover. Before leaving you would grab a candle to make your way through darkened corridors, with every step trying to avoid making the floorboards squeak. A passport to intimacy those candles must have been. Quite romantic objects to hold too, considering that today you would probably grab your telephone as a first step to a date, a secret rendez-vous or maybe even commercial phone sex.   Click on a thumbnail to get a larger image