On Tuesday, the Rijksmuseum announced that a rare condom dating from 1830 will go on display at the museum in its print room, where it will form part of a display on 19th-century sex work and sexuality. It will stay on display through November.
The condom is nearly 200 years old and is thought to be made from a sheep’s appendix. It features an erotic image depicting a nun and three clergyman and was likely a souvenir from a brothel. The piece, the museum said in a press release, is one of only two such objects that have survived to the present day.
The image, printed onto the condom, depicts a nun with her legs apart and pointing at three clergymen. Beneath it is the inscription Voilà mon choix—“This is my choice”—which the museum noted was a parody of a Greek myth, the Judgement of Paris.
The Rijksmuseum is the top museum in Amsterdam and serves as the national museum of the Netherlands, displaying around 1,000 objects from the over 1 million works in its collection, which also includes famed works from Dutch masters like Rembrandt, Johannes Vermeer, and Frans Hals.
The Rijksmuseum Print Room, which has some 750,000 prints, drawings, and photographs in its collection, purchased the condom at auction six months ago.
