A woman in a wide-brimmed hat rows steadily across moonlit water, her gaze fixed on the horizon, while a lone swimmer struggles in her wake. The oars slice through the dark, rippling surface, drawing the viewer into a silent tension between rescue and abandonment. The boat’s prow, marked “D.Z.

Napoli 151,” anchors the scene in a particular place and moment, while the swimmer’s striped shirt and desperate reach suggest a story unresolved. Steinlen’s lines are brisk yet careful, the moon’s reflection a cold path that divides the living from the lost. The composition’s drama lies in what is withheld: the woman’s face is calm, almost impassive, as if the outcome—salvation or indifference—rests entirely in her hands. This illustration, published on the front page of Gil Blas Illustré on 3 June 1894, belongs to a world where art and literature mingled in the pages of popular journals, each image a spark for the imagination of a restless public.

Les Yeux du mort is drawn from a story by Jean Lorrain, its title—“The Eyes of the Dead”—echoing the era’s fascination with the macabre and the psychological. In fin-de-siècle Paris, such works were both entertainment and social commentary, their creators—like Théophile Alexandre Steinlen—adept at capturing the anxieties and ambiguities of modern life. Though the details of this particular print’s journey are lost to time, its survival in the Boston Public Library collection invites us to linger over its mysteries, and to wonder what story the moonlit waters still conceal.