Lot 213A email save

RUSSIAN STONG MEN. Collection of twenty-seven mat

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Early 20th century. Comprising 19 invidually mounted gelatin carte postale photographs (1 hand colored) and 4 paired carte postales. Each postcard 135 x 85 mm. Condition: uncancelled with some edgewear, folds and minor soiling. The glorification of the perfect male physique as popularized by the German strongman Eugen Sandow (1867-1925), the Father of Modern Bodybuilding, created a craze for semi-nude photographs of athletes at the start of the twentieth century . The relatively short period of sexual liberation in Moscow and St. Petersburg after the Revolution of 1905 made these pictures especially popular in the Russian gay community. While French postcards were famous for their cheescake, the Russians supplied the beefcake. Sports photography was just beginning in the country and the Russians photographed any wrestlers, bodybuilders and weightlifters who were passing through. They toned down the homoerotic content of these pictures by posing these musclemen as classical statuary. (27)

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