2-880-225 - Shirley Markham Collection/Heritage Images

The Toilet of Helen, 1895. 'Before a toilet that shone like the altar of Notre Dame des Victoires, Helen was seated in a little dressing-gown of black and heliotrope. The coiffeur Cosmé was caring for her scented chevelure, and with tiny silver tongs, warm from the caresses of the flame, made delicious intelligent curls that fell as lightly as a breath about her forehead and over her eyebrows, and clustered like tendrils round her neck'. Illustration for Beardsley's novel "Under the Hill". 'From The Savoy No. I'. Published in "The Best of Beardsley" edited by R. A. Walker, [The Bodley Head, London, 1948]