Félicien Rops
Belgium 1833-1898 La vielle Masken, servente anversoise [The Old Woman]
Drypoint and aquatint, 1874-75
Museum purchase: Letha Churchill Walker Memorial Art Fund, 1989.0054
Notorious for his many pornographic prints, Félicien Rops also made etchings that betray his concern for social ills, including prostitution. Here Rops shows us a woman who worked as an attendant in a house of prostitution in Antwerp, but he does so with a keen sense of the woman's dignity. Rops is reported to have provided a narrative for this print in which the servant depicted here is calling out to a co-worker, "Virginia, this is a man who does not seem debauched!"
