Painter, printmaker, and illustrator, Rops was active in both his native Belgium and in France, where he moved in 1874; his vast and varied output included landscapes, portraits, and, above all, representations of modern life, often caustic and disconcertingly frank. A leading figure of the Belgian avant-garde, he is perhaps best known for his etchings and book illustrations of the 1870s and 1880s which, with their heady mixture of erotic and macabre imagery, make him one of the great figures of the late 19th-century Decadent Movement.
