...seminal early work ...an enigmatic painting thought to have been inspired by the 18th-century French novel of the same name, in which 2 rival lovers deploy sex as a weapon to humiliate others. As with many of the artist's works, it delights and disturbs in equal measure; uncanny, poetic, playful and erotic, it underlines his unsettling ability to pull at the threads of philosophical and psychological certainties... http://www.blaindidonna.com/exhibitions/2011/rene-magritte-dangerous-liaisons