Sexual & Erotic Charms · c. 3000 BCE – today

Love charms & aphrodisiac talismans

What it is

Charms to attract or bind a lover: mandrake roots carved into little men, love-knots and heart charms, Filipino gayuma, African and Melanesian love charms, and planetary Venus talismans.

Making yours

Very varied. Carved root, wax, cloth pouches of herbs, engraved copper (Venus’s metal).

See all 29, save the ones that feel right Ask about having one made

This section is sexually explicit: phallic charms, fertility figures and erotic badges, photographed as the museums hold them. The photographs stay blurred until you choose to see them.

Amulett mit LiebeszauberHermoupolis Magna

Mandrake amulet of today.United Kingdom

Three mother-goddesses or fates (above); three mandrake charms (below). Engraving.

The Love Charm (1921) - 2

Mandrake roots in human form; the mandrake plant; ginseng. Engraving.

Podophyllum peltatum (American mandrake)

Podophyllum hexandrum (Indian mandrake)

Podophyllum peltatum (May apple or American mandrake)

Mandrake: male.

Mandragora officinarum (Mandrake)

M0017586: The male and female mandrake, c.1529

Three people plucking mandrake. Gouache by Robert Bateman, 1870.

Podophyllum peltatum (American mandrake). Also known as 'May apple'.

M0017587: The mandrake from Hortus Sanitatis , 1485

Mandrake roots in the form of human figures, both naked and clothed; the mandrake plant itself (Mandragora officinarum L.); and a root of ginseng (Panax quinquefolius L.). Engraving.

A cudweed plant (Gnaphalium species), mandrake plant (Mandragora officinarum) and breadfruit tree (Artocarpus atilis). Coloured engraving, c. 1827.

A witch in the moonlight, opening her hand to a mandrake plant dressed in a white veil. Drawing by or after H. Fuseli.

Mandrake (Mandragora officinarum L.): flowering plant with separate fruit, seed and sectioned fruit. Coloured etching by M. Bouchard, 1772.

Anything in the gallery can be made, by hand, in the prescribed metal or yours and, where the tradition names an hour, at that hour or with a plain note that it was not. Numbered. Price on commission, quoted first. I reply within one business day.