asylum
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The Church of Strangelove Collection #1
It might surprise you that these photographs were taken on a person’s wedding day. The marriage was only recognised by the Church of Strangelove. The rest of society damned these weddings as ‘perverted nonsense’ and ostracised the human bride or groom forever. The truth is that while some of the marriages were the result of…
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Asylum Artwork by Peter Trout Collection #3
Today we return to the fascinating artwork of Peter Trout. We have asked one of our Victorian art specialists to discuss these images further. This is what she had to say: “We know that Mr Trout was a prominent illustrator of medical books. He also had an impressive background in classical art which he studied…
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Skink Magazine: The Victorian BDSM Catalogue Collection #5
We have seen the Victorian obsession with death before in other collections. It’s not difficult to understand why it existed. Medical science was still at a stage where the routine illnesses of today could have been certain death 130 years ago. The child mortality rate was abysmal and the life expectancy in England for a…
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Skink Magazine: The Victorian BDSM Catalogue Collection #4
These photographs were taken last year by a private collector of Victorian ‘love maids’. We are thankful to them for allowing us to archive the images here. These dolls were referenced in the classified section of Skink. They asked people to write to the Southern Exchange (abbreviated to SEX) for more information. It is a…
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Asylum Artwork by Peter Trout Collection #2
You may have noticed that compared to the other asylum artworks, Mr Trout’s are fairly clean. There are no desperate scratches or manic scribbles; the subjects are at least fathomable in a literal sense. We believe that this is because Mr Trout had a background in illustration. It is possible that after the trauma he…
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Asylum Artwork by Peter Trout Collection #1
Today we begin archiving the artwork of Mr Peter Trout. Mr Trout had carved a living out of painting medical illustrations. He had graduated aged 16 at a technical college in Oxford where he excelled in the artform. He worked extensively with universities and book publishers across the world. After visiting the theatre with his…
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Skink Magazine; The Victorian BDSM Catalogue Collection #2
As you can see from this collection, the craftsmanship that went into the masks and costumes is second to none. It’s almost as if they were wasted given that they were essentially used as private bedroom props. Disclaimer: you may be unsurprised to learn that none of the staff at TVUP are versed in BDSM…
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Domingo’s Haunted Puppet Show Collection #2
Following on from the last collection, we have discovered a little more about Alfred Byrne and his puppet shows. From a young age, Alfred had an incredible flair for creating puppets, costumes and stage designs. However, owed to the harsh living conditions he experienced in a small town in the northeast of England, with two…
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Domingo’s Haunted Puppet Show Collection #1
Alfred Byrne’s entertainment name was Domingo. We can see him in photograph #10 with some of his creations. He performed his shows in underground theatres across the country and was popular among bohemian circles. The stories he told tended to be a mix of nihilism, gallows humour and scathing social commentary. He attacked royalty, parliament,…
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Skink Magazine; The Victorian BDSM Catalogue Collection #1
When we think about the Victorians, we tend to focus on the stuffy and inflexible norms we find among polite society. No foul language, no bad manners and certainly no kink. But dig only a few inches deeper and we find that this was only part of the story. Although often well hidden, there were…
Welcome to the Victorian Underground Project 