The Inexorable Woman

In 1894 Maurice Dumont became director of L'Epreuve, a periodical featuring avant-garde Symbolist art and literature, and began printmaking. He achieved renown primarily for this series of seven Symbolist lithographs reflecting the influence of Odilon Redon, Felicien Rops, and Maurice Denis. La Dame inexorable depicts phases of death and dying: a willowy woman portrays both the ominous figure of death and its triumphant, haloed antithesis.