03-06-2025
Dutch museum buys 200-year-old condom for safe sex exhibition
A world-famous Dutch museum has bought a 200-year-old decorated condom, and will display it as part of an exhibition on sex in the 19th century.
The historic contraceptive, likely to have been made from a sheep's appendix, will join masterpieces including Rembrandt's The Night Watch in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
Dating back to about 1830, it is particularly notable because it has an erotic etching printed on it.
The Rijksmuseum said it believed the condom was 'more of a luxury brothel souvenir than an actual used condom'.
The etching shows a naked nun spreading her legs and pointing at three clergymen holding up their robes and sporting prominent erections. Underneath is written 'voila, mon choix' in French, which means: 'This is my choice.'
Experts believe the image is a parody of both celibacy and the Judgement of Paris from Greek mythology, and that the contraceptive was probably made in France. Only two such objects are known to have survived to the present day.
It is now the centrepiece of 'Safe Sex?', an exhibition on 19th-century prostitution and sexuality in the museum's Print Room, which runs until the end of November.
'You just have to have an eye for it'
The condom went to auction in Haarlem in November and was bought by the museum for €1,000.
Joyce Zelen, the print art curator, told Het Parool newspaper: 'Condoms with prints on them have sold for much more money in the past twenty years. I think this one didn't stand out among six thousand other lots. You just have to have an eye for it.
'For us, it is an example of a special object on which printmaking has been applied: an etching has been printed on it, a copper plate on a piece of appendix. We cannot see with the naked eye whether it came from a sheep, goat, horse or cow, so we would like to do DNA research on that.'
In a statement, the museum said: 'Acquiring the condom has enabled us to focus on 19th-century sexuality and prostitution, a subject that is under-represented in our collection.
'It embodies both the lighter and darker sides of sexual health, in an era when the quest for sensual pleasure was fraught with fears of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases – especially syphilis.'
At the time, condoms were used more for protection against disease than contraception, which was a taboo frowned on by the church.
There is evidence that ancient Egyptians used contraceptive sleeves 6,000 years ago. Linen sheaths were used from the late 15th century. Later, fish bladders, animal membranes and leather were used. Rubber condoms appeared after 1839 when vulcanised rubber was discovered.
