La Mort Qui Danse

Félicien Rops, La Mort qui danse, Vers 1865.

Crayon gras avec rehauts de craie blanche, travail à la pointe et grattoir (25 x 13 cm.)*

Collection Province de Namur, musée Félicien Rops.

In 1864 the publisher Poulet-Malassis brought Félicien Rops and Charles Baudelaire together. At the time Baudelaire was in Belgium to escape his creditors. "There is no Art in Belgium," Baudelaire wrote. "Art has retired from this country. There are no artists except Rops." So when Poulet-Malassis decided to make a reprint of Les Fleurs du Mal, this time including those poems that before had been censured, Rops did the artwork. (source)

I always thought of a different image when I read the name of this BPAL perfume. What I saw in my mind was the tarot card of Death from the Light and Shadow Tarot, designed by Michael Goepferd:

The scent named after Rops's crayon drawing is as much black and white as both pictures are. There is black pepper and white ginger (and calla lily, and lily of the valley). It is not a very strong scent and I smell more pepper than ginger (I was testing this again because of the ginger), but it is a very delicate, gentle, unusual and very nice scent. I might look to buy more once I am through this decant. I like this dancing death.


* (Grease pencil with white chalk highlights, worked at the point and scraping.)