There is something both compelling and awful about Retzsch. People take against him because of the unremitting, almost industrial, line of his interpretations. For me this a clear attraction in my long campaign to discredit expressionist gestures of a sloppy type.

But you can see the huge influence he had on European art, not least the Pre-Raphaelites before 1855, in the depiction of interiors and accessories. The repetition of identical locations with a variations in the deployment of figures has its charm. If I remember correctly the admirable Will Vaughan discovered that, for the English edition the generosity of the Codpieces was reduced to sensible proportions. Odd for a tale with its fair share of lust and demescence.

I always look out for the suppressed anal impulses in crowd scenes and phantasmagoria. In revelry and controlled orgies we approach a cusp of the disreputable. Here monsters' tails which under normal circumstances flow from the buttocks, curl back through the legs to become agile penises. Saucy old Moritz.