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26. Felicien Rops (1833-1898) Les Frères de la Bonne Trogne – La Consultation (The Brothers of the Red Nose – the Consultation)
Etching, 1858, from Légendes Flamandes by Charles de Coster, 175 x 123 mm., Exsteens 363, Mascha 320, Ramiro 363. Very fine impression on india-appliqué with large margins; some pale foxing on the support sheet. Rops again, with a very different, though almost equally bizarre, image. An assemblage of old men, who have drunk too much and eaten too much, and perhaps lived too much, express deep interest and glee in examining a book of racy pictures. The shock value of so many of Rops’ images is such that one often doesn’t notice that the man could draw like the very devil himself. Here, the boney fingers and facial expressions are simply priceless, and one hardly needs the lightly limned female figure in the open book to know at just what these ancient reprobates are looking. |
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