2-996-950 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

O Plaisir de l'opium que tu me ravis!..., 1844. 'O plaisir de l'opium, que tu me ravis!...il me semble que j'habite l'Orient...du reste, je ne sais quelle voix secrète me criait depuis longtemps que ma véritable patrie aurait dû être le désert! (O pleasure of opium, you ravish me!...it seems as though I dwell in the Orient... indeed, a secret voice I don't know has been calling out to me for a long time that my true home should have been the desert!) From periodical: Le Charivari, 7 May 1844. Les bas-bleus, 26. The series poked fun at the admirers of the feminist writer George Sand (the pen name of Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin), who were perceived as physically unfeminine, and neglectful of their obligations as wives and mothers.