Felicien Rops - Laboratory of Desires

The most poisonous berry of Symbolism, a scourge of the bourgeoisie – many terms have been used to describe Rops’s radical art. Celebrated by writers such as Charles Baudelaire and Joris-Karl Huysmans, he was a transgressive figure who deliberately aimed his works against the double standards of bourgeois society. His pictures – representing an absolute highpoint of printmaking and draughtsmanship from the period – invite a critical examination of fin-de-siècle social attitudes, particularly with regard to gender roles.