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35. Felicien Rops (1833-1898) L’Idole (The Idol)
Heliogravure and soft ground, ca. 1880, from Les Sataniques, 281 x 208 mm., Exsteens 785. Fine impression, with inky plate edges, on imperial japan with large margins; bits of old mounting tape at the upper corners of the sheet. Sex and Satan again, although the difficulties of intercourse with a stone statue are considerable and make one wonder how the woman has even managed to retain her high-heeled shoes. The blazing torchères on either side are hermaphroditic phalluses and one almost does not want to know what the beast at the lower right is doing to itself. Sexual Revolution or no, these nineteenth-century images retain their ability to shock. What must a viewer of their time have thought of them? And yet they were issued and reissued and reproduced in smaller formats and that is not done unless there are interested buyers. The prints are scarce today, and that may be because many of them were destroyed -- but I doubt it. |
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