Felicien Rops
1833 Namur - 1898 Corbeil-Essonnes
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Question d’Orient - 1874
Etching and drypoint on Hollande.
Size of sheet: 28.2 x 21.1 cm.
Exsteens: 337; Ramiro: 92; Mascha: 539; Rouir: 628.
Provenance: Collection of Jean Pigneur (1913-1993) (Lugt 4378); Collection of Jean-Pierre Babut de Marès (collector’s stamp).
Félicien Rops: Question d'Orient
The subject of this etching was first engraved on a silver coffee maker belonging to Dr.Filleau (Ramiro, Catalogue descriptif et analytique de l'œuvre gravé de Félicien Rops, 1893, p.75). Here we see a Parisian woman, a prostitute, with half-bare arms and a fan in her left hand, sits carelessly on a sofa. Her petticoats are rolled up enough to show her legs. She looks rather disdainfully as a middle eastern barefoot person prostrating at her feet who offers her a bundle of annuity securities, on which we read (in reverse) “Turkish Borrowing”.