Taking Tea

early 1870s

A marriage in crisis

Long months in Paris away from his wife and his poorly concealed affairs take their toll on the marriage: Charlotte writes that his latest affair is the eighth since they met and married, and ends her letter with a word of pardon. The mistress in question, Alice Renaud, will be murdered a few years later by her jealous husband, and Rops is drawn into the scandal when his intimate love letters to her are read out at the trial.

early 1870s

Turns to soft-ground etching

From the early 1870s Rops uses soft-ground etching, a technique few artists of his day practised, often combining it with mezzotint, aquatint and drypoint; later, with his friend Armand Rassenfosse, he invents the “Ropsenfosse” process, likely the first soft-ground method for colour prints from two or more plates.

1870s

Life as a trio with the Duluc sisters

Having known Madame Duluc and her young daughters since the 1860s, Rops begins, not long before the break with his wife, to live as a trio with the sisters Aurélie and Léontine, apparently with their mother’s endorsement. They will live together for more than 25 years, until his death: the sisters run the Paris fashion house Maison Duluc, for which he designs logos and advertisements, and the three twice travel to the United States and Canada to present their fashions.

1871–1898

Travels across Europe and North Africa

During his Paris years Rops travels extensively throughout Europe — from capital cities and art centres to salmon fishing in Norway and Sweden and ventures into the Hungarian back country — and also to Spain and North Africa.

by 1875

Final estrangement from his wife

By 1875 Félicien and Charlotte are permanently estranged — although they never divorce — and Paris remains Rops’s home for the rest of his life.

1877

A flourishing of fame and income in Paris

Rops thrives among Parisian artists and poets: the demand for his illustrations from publishers and authors of the literary avant-garde is greater than ever, and in 1877 he boasts that he is the best-paid illustrator in France; at the Paris salons, where he often exhibits, the public is both fascinated and shocked by his art and his personal life.