Spiritualism was all the rage in France in the 1850s; like many others, Victor Hugo and his household experimented with seances, table-rapping, and channeled communications.  This intriguing drawing dates from sometime around 1854.

Hugo’s large body of graphic work may be unfamiliar to some of you: he left behind more than 3500 drawings.  He had a particular penchant for romantic landscapes in ink and wash; here’s one of them, from 1866. 

(Posted by Doug Skinner.  Both of these appeared in I Disegni di Victor Hugo, Edizioni ALFA Bologna, 1983.)