Paul Gauguin's etched portrait of St�phane Mallarm� commemorates his admiration for one of the leaders of the Symbolist movement. The two men became acquainted in the winter of 1890-1891, while Gauguin was preparing for his first trip to Tahiti. The artist became a regular at Mallarm�'s weekly salons, and it was during this period that he executed the pen-and-ink drawing that served as the model for this etching. In both the drawing and the etching, Mallarm�'s ear appears pointed, a reference, no doubt, to his celebrated poem L'apr�s-midi d'une faune. Above and to the right of Mallarm�, half-hidden within a web of etched lines, the profile of a raven's head may be discerned. Gauguin derived this motif from �douard Manet's cover for Le corbeau (1875), the illustrated French edition of Poe's The Raven that he created in collaboration with Mallarm�.