Franz von Bayros

About Franz von Bayros

Franz, Marquis von Bayros, was a painter, illustrator, graphic artist, and bookplate designer, and usually working under the pseudonym "Choisy le Conin", one of the most prolific erotic artists in history. The son of a Spanish artistocrat, von Bayros specialised in erotic imagery, working in a rich, elegant style which owes much to Aubrey Beardsley but adds many additional layers of fetishism and detail, creating scenes with great attention to clothing, furniture, foliage - "an unmistakable cocktail of rococo daintiness, Beardsley-esque technique and witty, decadent eroticism".

In 1883 he enrolled at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, and became close with Johann Strauss and his circle of friends. In 1896 he married Alice, Johann Strauss's step-daugher, and they moved to Munich the next year, where he had his first exbibition in 1904. Von Bayros published Erzählungen am Toilettentische (Tales from the Dressing Table), his most famous work, in 1911, and the illustrations in this portfolio caused such controversy, taht he was arrested and exiled from Germany, returning to Vienna, where he died of a brain hamorrhage in 1924.