VIRGIN AND CHILD (plate preceding page 3) from L'YMAGIER, Tome Ier, No.1

Charles Filiger was a French painter and printmaker associated with the Symbolist movement in late nineteenth-century Paris. Working primarily in watercolor, pastel, and etching, he developed a distinctive practice centered on intimate landscapes and allegorical subjects rendered in jewel-like color and precise linear detail. Active in avant-garde circles during the 1880s and 1890s, Filiger created work that bridged Symbolism's psychological intensity with a fastidious, almost miniaturist approach to composition. He withdrew from public life in his later years.