A darkly humorous artist’s book in the form of a mock guide for young men, drawn from late-19th-century materials in the Rosenbach Museum & Library’s collection.
Following her installation of Red Maids at the Rosenbach Museum & Library, Teresa was invited by the Borowsky Center for Publication Arts at the University of the Arts to create an artist’s book rooted in further research in the collection. While Red Maids examined 19th-century British social mores as they applied to women, The Last Favour turned to sources in the collection that addressed the same terrain as it applied to men. The title comes from a phrase in Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders — a euphemism for sexual intercourse — which Teresa encountered in her research and adopted as the book’s dry, knowing frame. She created a small, slender mock guide for young men, its text drawn directly from 19th-century self-help booklets on health, etiquette, and social advancement held in the Rosenbach’s collection. With dark humor, the guide offers advice on managing sexual desire while protecting one’s health and reputation. Framed as a cautionary tale, it charts a reckless slide from innocence to obsession and, ultimately, death — making the “last favour” both a warning and a final concession.
Published by the Rosenbach Museum & Library and the Borowsky Center for Publication Arts, The Last Favour was supported by grants from the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation and The Leeway Foundation.
Photos
Selected page spreads from The Last Favour — all text and images are from original materials in the Rosenbach Museum & Library collections.
1. View of skirts from below, Red Maids installation, and Table of Contents · 2. Courtship: Tip of the Velvet and cover image of The School of Love or, Original and Comic Valentine Writer for Trades and Professions, &c. · 3. Seduction: The Last Favour and cover image of Cuisine De l’Amour · 4. Image of carte de visite, “MEATY” and excerpt from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, scene of the seduction of Jonathan Harker by the three succubi · 5. Possession: A Mastiff Eyeing a Bone and the title page from The Englishman’s Fortnight in Paris; or, the Art of Ruining Himself There in a Few Days · 6. Epilogue: Tis Good Sheltering Under an Old Hedge, and excerpt from a letter by Benjamin Franklin advising his young nephew to take an old mistress over a young one
Photo credits: Gary McKinnis
