
1897
About two years after finishing the plate for L’agonie des fleurs, Roussel created his color print Last Poppies. While dying poppies figure prominently in the impressively large and detailed L’agonie, they are the sole subjects of the much smaller, more abstract later etching. While Roussel realized the middle tones on the leaves and flower petals through parallel and crosshatched lines, the nearly uniform dark background in Last Poppies results from Roussel’s mastery of soft ground evident already in L’agonie.