Unknown photographer, French, active 1840s-1850s. No title (Nude Woman with Long Hair) c.1852 daguerreotype, 9.4 x 14.8 cm. National Gallery of Victoria
Woody Allen famously defined the difference between erotica and pornography: ‘With erotica you use a feather and with pornography, the whole chicken.’ But fowl play notwithstanding, deciding what denotes pornographic material is ultimately subjective. While erotica can certainly swing over to the explicit, it also celebrates the less fetishised aspects of the body – the hinge of a waist, the curve of a wrist, a loaded glance.
