Last Poppies
1897
Medium
Etching and softground in dark reddish-brown on bluish-ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Image/plate: 7.9 × 6.8 cm (3 1/8 × 2 11/16 in.); Sheet: 10.5 × 9.4 cm (4 3/16 × 3 3/4 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
211052
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
About two years after finishing the plate for L’agonie des fleurs, Roussel created his color print Last Poppies. While dying poppies figure prominently in the impressively large and detailed L’agonie, they are the sole subjects of the much smaller, more abstract later etching. While Roussel realized the middle tones on the leaves and flower petals through parallel and crosshatched lines, the nearly uniform dark background in Last Poppies results from Roussel’s mastery of soft ground evident alre...
About the Artist
Theodore Roussel · 1847–1926
Theodore Casimir Roussel was born on 23 March 1847 in Lorient, Brittany, France, into a naval family. After serving in the Franco-Prussian War, he began painting in 1872 as an entirely self-taught artist, initially rendering scenes of daily life in the meticulous style of the Old Masters. In 1878, he settled permanently in London, where he immersed himself in the vibrant British art scene. There, ...