Felicien Rops - No Title

Dry-point ectching
c. 1880
15 by 10.5 cm

Felicien Rops is one of the nineteenth century pioneers of modern art. He befriended the French poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire and illustrated Baudelaire`s masterpiece Les Fleurs du Mal. This dry-point etching combines Rops lively interest in folkloristic characters with his facination for the so-called femme fatale. The artist explores on the theme of eros and thanatos by depicting a female nude directing her dark gaze - absinth? - into the hollow eyes of a skull.