British Museum explores historic secrets of gay love

Guide to erotic LGBT objects, supported by actor Simon Russell Beale and artist Maggi Hambling, forms part of Pride festival There is a sculpture of the beautiful face of Antinous, at whose death Emperor Hadrian “wept like a woman”; a battered copper coin showing the poet Sappho, whose surviving fragments of erotic poetry were so

Guide to erotic LGBT objects, supported by actor Simon Russell Beale and artist Maggi Hambling, forms part of Pride festival

There is a sculpture of the beautiful face of Antinous, at whose death Emperor Hadrian “wept like a woman”; a battered copper coin showing the poet Sappho, whose surviving fragments of erotic poetry were so intense that the Victorians called all women who loved women after her native Lesbos; and a 20-year-old tin badge demanding, “how dare you presume I’m heterosexual”.

The objects are among those detailed in a new guide to be launched this month by the British Museum, tracing a history often hidden within one of the world’s great collections.

Read more : www.guardian.co.uk

Photo : Eurovision – 2013 Gay kiss – SVT