Félicien Rops

1833 – 1898

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La Luxure (Le Pilori)

Original etching and soft ground etching with drypoint.

Superb impression printed with considerable plate tone, as first issued. Rare.

£850 - available for institutional purchase only

Satan créant les monstres

Original soft ground etching over heliogravure base.

Extremely rare. Outstanding early proof impression printed with considerable ink to produce a rich dark background tone.

One of two rare plates intended for Les Sataniques but never released.

£875 - available for institutional purchase only

L’Oliviérade 1876

Original etching and drypoint.

Superb impression with the fresh drypoint burr printing rich and strong. A proof prior to the reduction of the plate and before the engraved lettering was added.

£525

Étude de Déshabillé

Aquatint over heliogravure.

An impression between Exsteens’ first and second states of the plate, prior to darkening of the girl’s hair and general adjustment of the grey tonality of the image.

SOLD

L’Amour Dominant Le Monde / L’Amour à travers les âges

Heliogravure, re-worked with etching.

Very good early impression of the re-worked heliogravure with the remarque of Cupid offering a bouquet of flowers. In this state, the etched work is still clear, the surface of the image covers 314 x 208 and the plate remains unlettered.

SOLD

Le Bout du Sillon 1907

Etching, soft ground etching, drypoint, mezzotint and aquatint by Albert Bertrand after Félicien Rops, printed in colours.

Outstanding early proof impression, with fresh, unfaded colours. Before the remarque in the margin and prior to the only published edition – rare in this form.

SOLD

L’Incantation 1909

Aquatint and soft ground etching by Albert Bertrand after Félicien Rops, printed in colours.

Brilliant proof impression with totally fresh, unfaded colours. An unnumbered proof aside from the normal edition, after the remarque had been effaced but prior to the normal edition of 200 numbered impressions (50 proofs had been printed with the remarque).

SOLD

Le Scandale 1895

Drypoint and aquatint.

Exceptionally early working proof impression printed just after the initial aquatint ground had been laid upon the plate and with only certain of the essential figure details defined in drypoint. Prior to the remarque. Exsteens’ second state of seven.
Extremely rare - only eight sets to include proofs of this nature were ever released.

SOLD

The Symbolist Belgian artist Félicien Rops had come to Paris in 1862 to study etching with Bracquemond and Jacquemart, the founders of the new Société des Aquafortistes – within six months he had been elected to their committee and within a year had replaced Daubigny on its jury. In the early 1870’s Félicien Rops founded the Société Internationale des Aquafortistes in his native Belgium.

The overriding motivation behind Félicien Rops’s art was his obsession with the beauty and sensuality of women. Rops did not confine his view of sensual beauty to the fashionable ladies of the cities; to Félicien Rops eroticism could be found just as clearly in a peasant worker, often in the most mundane of situations.

Late in Félicien Rops’s life the Parisian publisher Gustave Pellet approached the artist with the idea of allowing the outstanding engraver and master of aquatint, Albert Bertrand (1854-1912), to make engravings of his works. Rops embraced the idea with great enthusiasm as he approved wholeheartedly of both Bertrand’s artistic manner and technical expertise. The brilliant mixed method prints which Albert Bertrand produced as a result of this union are now amongst the most sought after of all hand-made etchings and engravings both by and after Félicien Rops. [more]