Alfred Gilbert's Aestheticism

Alfred Gilbert's Aestheticism presents the first sustained re-evaluation of the life and work of one of the most acclaimed sculptors of the late-Victorian period. Drawing on important archival sources, this ground-breaking study challenges the customary assumption that Aestheticism was primarily a literary, painterly or architectural phenomena. Jason Edwards reveals both the diverse ways in which Gilbert's sculptures operated within the context of Aestheticism and also how these works provided a unique and provocative commentary on the history of masculine friendship and eroticism in the period leading up to and beyond the Wilde trials in 1895.