Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum has introduced a striking and unusual piece to its collection: a nearly 200-year-old condom, decorated with erotic illustrations that echo the city’s storied Red Light District.
Believed to date back to around 1830 and made from a sheep’s appendix, the condom features explicit artwork and an inscription that reveal both the playful and serious dimensions of sexual health in the 19th century. The museum describes the piece as shedding light on the complex relationship between pleasure, morality, and disease during that era.
Now on display as part of the “Safe Sex?” exhibition, which opened Tuesday, the condom is thought to have once served as a brothel souvenir. It is illustrated with a provocative image of a nun and three clergymen, alongside the French phrase “Ceci est mon choix” (“This is my choice”). The inscription references The Judgment of Paris—a mythological tale in which the Trojan prince Paris must choose the most beautiful among three goddesses.
In a statement, the Rijksmuseum said: “Acquiring the condom has enabled us to focus on 19th-century sexuality and prostitution, a subject that is underrepresented in our collection. It embodies both the lighter and darker sides of sexual health, in an era when the pursuit of pleasure was shadowed by fears of unwanted pregnancy and rampant sexually transmitted infections, particularly syphilis.”
The rare artifact will be on view until the end of November.
By Independent
