The Rolling Stones

26 1/2 x 14 1/2 in; 673 x 368 mm. Printed in colours. 2 copies of both side of the cover, designed by Tom Wilkes and photographed Barry Feinstein. 

From the collection of former Decca executive  Allan Steckler

clean
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Rare suppressed original album art

"The Rolling Stones are are in a head-on battle with their American (and possibly their English) record company over the artwork for the cover of their next album, Beggar's Banquet. The front and back cover of the double-fold album is a photograph of a bathroom wall. On it, the Stones, particularly Mick, have scrawled a variety of fantastically funny things, including the album title, the name of the group (underneath the name of the group it says "God Rolls His Own), credits, appropriate line drawings, slogans like "Wot, No Paper?" and "Music From Big Brown." That's the least of it. It is a fantastic thing, altogether, very Rolling Stones-ish and a beautiful record jacket" wrote Rolling Stone magazine on 28 September 1968.

The cover would have been the the first cover not to feature a band photograph. The record label in the U.K. (Decca) and the U.S. label, London Records, both rejected the bathroom grafitti as too controversial. The band lost the legal battle and the chosen cover was finally a formal party invitation.