Auction house Christie’s puts explicit content warning on £400,000 Rembrandt etching The French Bed which depicts a clothed couple in a moment of passion

• 17th century work is hidden from view in their online catalogue 
• Message reads: ‘This lot contains explicit ­material and mature subject matter’

A Rembrandt etching with depicts a clothed couple in a moment of passion has been given an explicit content warning in an auction catalogue.

The Dutch artist’s The French Bed, which is estimated to be worth between £250,000 and £400,000, portrays a couple in a curtained bed making love. 

Auction House Christie’s are selling the etching, but consider the work to be so raunchy it requires a warning. 

The 17th century work is hidden from view in their online catalogue. The only way users can access the piece is if they click on a message which reads: ‘This lot contains explicit ­material and mature subject matter.’

Historian and broadcaster Bendor Grosvenor told the Times he had never before seen such a warning in auction catalogues. 

The Dutch artist’s The French Bed, which is estimated to fetch between £250,000 and £400,000, portrays a couple in a curtained bed making love

The only way users can access the Rembrandt piece is if they click on a message which reads: ‘This lot contains explicit ­material and mature subject matter.’

‘This is a new one — content warnings in Old Master catalogues,’ he said. 

‘I think Rembrandt would have loved the idea of being properly on the top shelf, but I can see why it’s best to be cautious about online­ content these days.’ 

Christie’s had nothing to add when asked for a comment. 

It is not the first bizarre trigger warning to have been provided in recent times,    audiences attending a play about one of Britain’s most notorious drunkards are cautioned that it contains references to alcohol. 

The new production of Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell is staged inside the London pub where the late writer and raconteur was often seen propping up the bar.

Those attending the show at the Coach & Horses in Soho were sent an email ahead of the performance saying: ‘Trigger warning: The play references smoking, gambling, alcohol, and sex.’

Universities have also applied trigger warnings to more than 1,000 texts and started removing others from reading lists to protect students from ‘challenging’ content.

An investigation has revealed ten institutions – including three from the elite Russell Group – have either withdrawn books or made them optional in case they harm undergraduates.

Affected texts include 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, and August Strindberg’s classic play Miss Julie.

The work of authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens and Agatha Christie have been given trigger warnings.

In June this year, trigger warnings were slapped on Ernest Hemingway’s work by publishers over ‘language and attitudes’.

Penguin Random House reissued the Old Man and the Sea author’s works and in the latest edition of his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises it says: ‘The publisher’s decision to present it as it was originally published is not intended as an endorsement of cultural representations or language contained herein.’

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