Le Rydeack

Felicien Joseph Victor Rops

These original works were a combination of photography and traditional printmaking, much as Rouault did a few years later in his prints for Miserere.

Rops used heliogravure, a technical process using chemicals to make printing plates used for intaglio printing. The work is reproduced on metal by photographic transfer. Rops discovered that heliogravure was a practical way of transferring his drawings to copperplate. He often reworked his plates by hand, according to traditional etching techniques, such as line etching and soft ground etching.