Frontispiece of the work: “The Sphere of the Moon”

FÉLICIEN ROPS (1833-1898)

Brussels, 1881.

Etching on Japan paper glued to cardboard paper.

Print from the book by Charlotte de Brégy and edited by Gay i Doucé.

Fourth state of four.

Signed with initials “F.R.” in blood

Good condition. With margins.

Although the full moon has been commonly associated with a face, in some popular traditions it is mockingly compared to the ass. Such seems to be the motive that inspires this small erotic print by Félicien Rops, in which a small putti in the guise of an astronomer sees his exploration of the satellite interrupted by the contemplation of another kind of Moon of at least comparable beauty.

Félicien Rops stood out in the etching technique in which he created a very personal style close to fin-de-siècle decadentism in which eroticism and Satanism often went hand in hand.