Félicien Joseph Victor Rops. 1833-1898.
Satan sement l'ivraie (premier planche). (Satan Sowing Tares). 1878. Heliogravure touched with soft-ground etching. Exsteens 927.i/iv. Image: 9 1/2 x 6 3/8; Plate: 10 7/8 x 8; sheet: 17 1/8 x 12 3/8. Series: Les Sataniques. An atmospheric, tonal impression printed on Japanese vellum. At first glance, the image seems to be of a farmer sowing seeds in a field. Actually Satan is striding over a city, presumably Paris, with one foot on Notre Dame. He is throwing down women, presumably loose women, to destroy the moral life of the city. Rops is commenting on the hedonism of Paris life. He was also interested in the Satanism movement popular at the time. This is one of the artist's most dramatic images. Signed in red pencil. $5,000.
Seule. (Alone). 1876. Heliogravure printed in color. Exsteens 642. Rouir 632.i/iii. Image: 6 1/2 x 5 5/16; Plate: 7 1/8 x 6 1/2; sheet: 17 1/8 x 6 1/2. Series: Les Sataniques. A beautifully wiped impression printed on 'Van Gelder Zonen' laid paper. Rouir does not list a color printing; however he writes, 'de ce courrier on peut déduire qu'il y aurait eu deux hélios de cette planche; nous ne connaissons que celle-ci'. $550.
After Rops.
Le Champs et Souvenir de Barbizon. 1875. Heliogravure reproduction. Exsteens 224; Ramiro 126; Rouir vol. II, Figure 8. Exsteens and Ramiro accepted it as a lithograph; however Rouir rejects it as a heliogravure reproduction. 5 7/8 x 3 7/8 (sheet 11 3/4 x 8 2/8). Printed on tan laid paper with deckle edges on three sides. Signed in the plate. $150.
Rops was born in Belgium. He settled in Paris in 1874, welcomed by Puvis de Chavannes and Gustave Moreau. He worked closely with Baudelaire. Rops was fascinated by the fantastic and the supernatural, and his themes are frequently Symbolist in kind. The devil, skeletons, the prostitute, and death are the Baudelairian accessories of his art. Huysmans stated that Rops "celebrated that spiritualism of Luxury that is Satanism, and painted, in pages that cannot be perfected, the supernaturalism of perversity, the otherworld of Evil."