This is an original etching from Joseph Apoux from ca 1900.

8 1/4″ x 7 1/4″ (plate size) with full margins as issued, signed and titled in the plate

Joseph Apoux was born in Paris circa 1860. Little is known of the life of this French artist.
He was the creator of the erotic ” Alphabet Pornographique “. A fantastic group of striking images, which is typical of the “fin de siecle” obsessions with sex, death & the bizarre of the French Aesthetic Arts at the end of the 19th century.
Apoux studied painting and drawing with Jean-Léon Gérôme. He then specialized in engraving in aquatint and drypoint . He exhibited in 1880 and participates in the International Exhibition of Black and White (1886). Joly, Quai Saint-Michel , and the merchant of prints René Pincebourde, rue de Verneuil , were his publishers between 1880 and 1900.