Armand Rassenfosse (6 August 1862 – 28 January 1934) was a largely self-taught Belgian graphic artist, book illustrator and painter.

For generations his family had run a store selling home furnishings and decorative art works: crystal, porcelain, bronze and oriental rugs.

However, for the last years of his secondary education he went to Namur to study, living with his uncle, who gave him a few etchings by Félicien Rops from his collection.

Unknown to his family, by 1882 Rassenfosse was contributing drawings signed "Zig" to the satirical journal Le Frondeur, and was experimenting with etching using crude tools.

At the age of 25 Rassenfosse was in Paris on family business and was introduced to Felicien Rops, his first inspiration, who was then at the height of his career.

Rassenfosse worked with him to develop a special soft ground mixture for reworking intaglio plates to which crayon drawings had been transferred photomechanically.

In 1896, he became an intern under Jules Chéret, a lithographer known for his high-quality artistic posters, at the Chaix printing works in Paris.

[5] Between 1899 and 1901, Rassenfosse undertook a major contract with Rodrigues's "Société des Cent Bibliophiles" to illustrate Charles Baudelaire's poems Les Fleurs du mal.

When Bénard died in 1907 he had to undertake greater responsibilities with the printing house, leaving him less time for artistic work, leading to a temporary period of stagnation.

[citation needed] He was interested in the theme of "hiercheuses", as the young girls and women from the Liege coal industry were called.

[1] A bronze bust of Rassenfosse, executed by his friend Fix Masseau, stands in the Parc de la Boverie.

[8] However, talking of Rassenfosse's earlier work another writer said that in his advertisements he and others of the time "exploited the image of the sensuous, beautiful young woman ... in a serenely dreamy state ... the stylised embodiment of temptation..."[9]