Le Vice suprème: Frontispiece 1884

Felicien Rops’s 1884 etching, *Le Vice suprème: Frontispiece*, depicts a headless man in a tuxedo standing on a pedestal, holding a top hat and gazing at a skeletal woman emerging from a coffin. The woman, adorned with a flower in her hair and a flowing gown, gestures toward the viewer with a fan. The scene is full of symbolic details, including flying birds, a decaying dog, and a skeletal hand at the bottom, suggesting the theme of death and decay. Rops's print, a powerful critique of the decadent socialites of 19th-century Paris, remains a haunting example of Symbolism in art.