ROPS, Félicien (1833-1898)
Original work signed « F. Rops »: Les Jeunes [France par Th. Gautier]
Signed with the monogram in ink in the lower right corner and signed in pencil below the image
N.p., [1866], on a leaf of wove paper, 18.5 x 13 cm (ruled frame 15 x 10 cm), graphite and pen
92% museum glass, black mat, frame in beech stained with India ink (33 x 27 cm)
Very faint perforation at center, old traces of tab mounting and mounting
Only known preparatory study in private hands for one of the most famous frontispieces of the 19th century
Formerly part of the Maurice Pereire, Jacques Odry & Carlo De Poortere collections
This preparatory study by Rops, already highly finished, served for the etched frontispiece of the third edition of Les Jeunes France, romans goguenards by Théophile Gautier. The work was published in Amsterdam, under the sign of Au Coq [Brussels, Poulet-Malassis], in 1866.
The first edition appeared in 1833, shortly after Gautier had aligned himself with the Romantic movement. The writer published this work, which he described as the “Précieuses ridicules of Romanticism,” distancing himself from the movement while at the same time mocking the mannerisms of his contemporaries. Gautier pokes fun at the devotees of the Cénacle gathered in the Impasse du Doyenné, a phalanstery that was the stage for the most extreme eccentricities, where Romanticism merged with the macabre.
In keeping with the writer’s antiromantic pamphlet, Rops throws himself into the task with relish, conjuring here an orgiastic atmosphere, blending violence, lewdness, and music, centered on a half-naked woman lying on her stomach, her rear exposed by a still-slender Dumas père. In a letter to Maurice Bonvoisin of 4 April 1877, Rops offers some clarification on his composition: “The young Alexandre Dumas discovers the muse whom Alfred de Musset is eyeing rather too closely. Balzac in a monk’s robe, George [sic] Sand ‘as a man,’ Madame de Girardin, Théophile Gautier as a Turk, Sainte-Beuve, Lamartine, etc., etc. The whole Romantic School forms a gallery, with Hugo ‘at Golgotha’ in the background — all these figures are ‘young’; in the foreground, Ponsard as a Roman is being strangled by some Pétrus Borel or other. The latest arrival, Baudelaire, plump-collared, brings his Fleurs du mal.” (Musée Rops letters website, no. 3094, pl. 49).
Two other preparatory studies by the artist are recorded, both held at the Met under accession numbers 1979.668.2 and 1979.668.3 (donations of Albert Broccoli, 1979).
