Vitrioleuse (The Acid Thrower)

Eugène Samuel Grasset

1894

Photo-relief print, with hand-stencilled color

Minneapolis Institute of Art

When writer Henri Bouchet called the colors in L'Estampe originale cruel, violent, and color-blind, he may have had Eugène Grasset's figure in mind. Intruding at a diagonal in imitation of Japanese actor prints, she is as agitated as the acid sloshing in her green hand. Her hair seems to curl into satanic little horns. In Grasset's day, scorned women would attempt to disfigure their rivals with sulfuric acid. Concurrent with the trend in vitriolage was a fascination with hysteria, to which women were supposedly more susceptible than men. Gallery Not on View Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Edward A. Foster, 1965