B35 – Les petites Vielles

“Des êtres singuliers, décrépits et charmant…furent jadis de femmes…Eponine et Laïs! pauvres sonnettes. Celle-là droite encore… Vous qui fûtes la grâce ou qui fûtes la gloire…Moi qui de loin tendrement vous surveille…”

The 35th engraving in the Les Fleurs Du Mal series. This is the counterpart of B36 (Les Aveugles – which unfortunately we do not have in our collection). In both works the elderly and the blind walk in opposite directions. In the center there is a typical kiosk like this one in Paris at the time with posters depicting the contrasts between the two crowds. It is remarkable that behind every old person we see his younger image. There is also a reference to Jeanne d ‘Arc. In this work, Delhez has depicted three old women who were close to his heart in his childhood years, his grandmother, a farm girl with whom he spent his holidays and the woman who raised him in her family until he was six years old.

This work belongs to the second series of five called ‘Tablaux Parisiens’.  There’re small traces of glue at the left, right, top and bottom, but those are invisible when the work is framed. The work itself is not damaged, but still we don’t ask the price we normally ask for a work in this series.