Félicien Rops

Félicien Victor Joseph Rops was a Belgian artist associated with Symbolism, Decadence, and the Parisian fin de siècle, and was a member of the Les XX group. He was a painter, illustrator, caricaturist and a prolific and innovative print maker, particularly in intaglio. Although not well known to the general public and initially sought after as a pornographer, Rops was greatly respected by his bohemian peers and actively pursued and celebrated as an illustrator by the publishers, authors, and poets of his time. He provided frontispieces and illustrations for works by Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, Charles Baudelaire, Charles De Coster, Théophile Gautier, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Stéphane Mallarmé, Joséphin Péladan, Paul Verlaine, Voltaire, and many others. Best known today for his prints and drawings illustrating erotic and occult literature of the period, he also produced oil paintings including landscapes, seascapes, and occasional genre paintings. Rops is recognized as a pioneer of Belgian comics.