Long-overlooked by modern audiences, certain elements of famous Pre-Raphaelite paintings from the Victorian era will be exposed as more risque than prudish in a major exhibition at Tate Britain.

A Tate curator, Dr. Carol Jacobi, has decoded some sexual references in the art on view. “This idea of one set of Victorian values is totally set aside. It was just like now; it was a society undergoing a dramatic transformation,” she says.

Inspried by the art of the early Renaissance, the Pre-Raphaelites began in 1848 with the ideal of stantding apart from the art establishment of their day.

The Tate's exhibition "Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde" is the largest survey of the group for over 25 years, and will show over 150 works from leading members of the movement which also include Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais and Edward Burne-Jones.