English: Pinckney Marcius-Simons, Les Courtisanes, c. 1894, Delaware Art Museum; oil on canvas, 41.5 x 28.5 inches. Acquired 1993, subsequent to auction of May 3, 1993 at Christie's as "Classical Maidens Descending a Staircase" by "Pincus Marcius Simon"[sic], result $2,530; Christie's lot description noted previous exhibition at Avery Gallery, New York, February, 1895.[1] The painting was described in the article "An Artist with a Message" in The Living Church, March 23, 1895, p. 924: "'Les Courtisanes' shows a frivolous crowd, gay, happy, clad in costly garments of many hues. They laugh and dance through the streets of a Grecian town, to an imposing flight of broad, marble steps, down which they lightly wend their way, smiling, heedless, looking not ahead. But they dance to their doom. The stairway ends in a dreadful pool, the black and slimy waters of oblivion. At one side a gaping monster waits in shadow. Before us we see upturned faces, no longer filled with laughter, staring vacantly as they float unknown, uncared for."[2]