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7. Félicien Rops, (1833-1898) L’Enlèvement (The Abduction)
Heliogravure and soft-ground etching, ca. 1882, from Les Sataniques (plate 2), 277 x 198 mm., Exsteens 784 or 1081.. Superb impression on Arches wove paper with full, large margins. Not the sort of print you’d want to have on the wall when your mother-in-law is visiting, Rops’ Enlèvement is nevertheless one of the great images of nineteenth-century printmaking. Abduction by forces beyond human control has been a primal fear from the beginnings of civilization and is wedged in our sub-conscious, to emerge in dreams, in legends, in literature – and in art. Rops, with sexual overtones, evokes a nightmare vision of possession and helplessness in a night skyscape that is both in this world and out of it. |
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