This bas-relief, installed at La Défense in 1987, was conceived as early as 1951. As its name suggests, the work is clearly inspired by Arthur Rimbaud's famous poem, whose sensual dreamlike quality the artist transcribed.

"On the calm, black wave where the stars sleep, the white Ophelia floats like a great lily, Floats very slowly, lying in her long veils..."
 

Appel.les Fenosa was born in Barcelona in 1899. His cosmopolitan inspirations fueled his creative imagination. In Paris, where he moved in 1921, he met Picasso who, seeing in this young sculptor an originality of perception and integrity of approach, decided to support him.

Helped and recognized, he exhibited his work in a Paris gallery in 1926. Fenosa's art, particularly devoted to the sensual and almost exclusive representation of the eternal feminine, is sensitive, imbued with surrealism and a profound sense of arabesque. Appel.les Fenosa died in 1988.