THE SECRETUM

There is an old corridor in the British Museum where you will find an old cabinet with the number 55. The Secretum is a secret area of the museum with a collection from 1865, too obscene for the public: the theme of these objects is sex.

These pieces underline the importance of fertility and sexual acts, from sexual freedom to moral prudishness. A private collector, George Witt, donated all these erotic artifacts he had collected during his journeys through Europe and Asia. In the 1960s, the Secretum collection was gradually redistributed to other parts of the British Museum and from the 80s its remaining are kept in cupboard 54 and 55 in the Department of Medieval and Later Antiquities.

 

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