Here, for Valentine's Day, is a joyfully erotic depiction of a nymph and faun by the Hungarian painter Szinyei Merse Pál. The faun is entranced by what he has found between the lovely nymph's spread thighs and his goat's penis has responded accordingly. The nymph, looks equally delighted and, despite the mythological treatment, it says a lot about the joys of a young couple discovering each other's bodies.
Nymph and Faun (sketch) 1868
Amazingly, this picture was painted in around 1867, although it looks more modern. Painted when Szinyei Merse (in Hungary family names come first) was in his early twenties, it is one of a series of pictures he did of nymphs and fauns at the time. In the others the faun is the dominant subject with the nymph glimpsed in the background.
Nymph and Faun (1868)
The erotic painting was only discovered and authenticated, by one of the artist's family, just over ten years ago. It was an unusual work to discover in the oeuvre of such an establishment artist in Hungary.
Nymph and Faun (sketch) 1868
Born into an aristocratic family, he took private painting lessons before enrolling in the Akademie der Bildenden Künste München at the age of 19. The coming of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 saw him move to Genoa, although he returned home in 1873 and only painted occasionally as he had family problems. For a decade, from 1882, he stopped painting entirely but after a successful exhibition of his work in 1894 he resumed painting and carried on until his death in 1920. He exhibited widely in Europe and the US, became the president of the Hungarian University of Fine Arts and also became a member of parliament.
Wow!
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