Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French writer, libertine, political activist and nobleman best known for his libertine novels and imprisonment for sex crimes, blasphemy and pornography. His works include novels, short stories, plays, dialogues, and political tracts. Some of these were published under his own name during his lifetime, but most appeared anonymously or posthumously.
Portrait of Donatien Alphonse François de Sade by Charles Amédée Philippe van Loo. The drawing dates to 1760, when Sade was 19 years old, and is the only known authentic portrait of him.
Sade's father, Jean-Baptiste François Joseph de Sade
Sade's mother, Marie Eléonore de Maillé de Carman
Detail of Les 120 Journées de Sodome manuscript
A libertine is a person devoid of most moral principles, a sense of responsibility, or sexual restraints, who sees these traits as unnecessary or undesirable, and is especially someone who ignores or even spurns accepted morals and forms of behaviour observed by the larger society. The values and practices of libertines are known collectively as libertinism or libertinage and are described as an extreme form of hedonism. Libertines put value on physical pleasures, meaning those experienced through the senses. As a philosophy, libertinism gained new-found adherents in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, particularly in France and Great Britain. Notable among these were John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, and the Marquis de Sade.
John Wilmot by Jacob Huysmans
Marquis de Sade by Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo