Existing comment:
Henri-Charles Guérard
(French, 1846–1897)
L'Assaut du soulier (The Assault of the Shoe), ca. 1888
Etching, drypoint, and aquatint, with roulette in pink and yellow
The image, which shows a troop of tiny Japanese men climbing energetically over a woman's shoe of Western style, captures the droll and occasionally baffling behavior of the figures in Hokusai manga. Women's feet and, especially, their shoes have long been fetishized in both the West and the East, and the conduct of the "assailants," which includes a figure clambering on the slipper's ruffled pompom, is suggestive. The impressions shown here reveal Guérard experimenting with jaunty colors, one hot pink, the other bright yellow. |