La Parabole du Semeur

Paris: L'Artiste, 1875. Heliogravure and drypoint on cream laid paper. 6 3/8 x 4 1/2 inches (160 x 112 mm) with full margins. Second state (of 2). Scattered rippling from moisture at sheet edges. Scattered handling creases throughout. Hard crease along extreme right sheet edge, one half inch from edge. Scattered light foxing, band of discoloration extending through image area. Ink notation on verso, pencil notations on recto, both well outside of image area.

[Exsteens 300]. The first state image of La Parabole Du Semeur, as it is described in Exteens, was printed both in a large and small format. The grande planche, which measures approximately 350 x 250 mm, and the petite planche, which measures approximately 160 x 110 mm. Though a specific explanation is lacking, it appears as though The L'Artiste edition was printed from a plate created from the petite planche with the use of heliogravure, and subsequently finished with drypoint etching by an artist other than Rops. This accounts for the use of the descriptor "after," and also explains the general industry acceptance of this edition as being by Rops, as the genesis of the image is indeed the original plate.

Félicien Victor Joseph Rops (7 July 1833 - 23 August 1898) was a Belgian artist associated with Symbolism and the Parisian Fin-de Siecle. He was a painter, illustrator, caricaturist and a prolific and innovative print maker, particularly in intaglio (etching and aquatint). Although not well known to the general public, Rops was greatly respected by his peers and actively pursued and celebrated as an illustrator by the publishers, authors, and poets of his time. He provided frontispieces and illustrations for 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.