King Pest (Le Roi Peste)
James Ensor
Belgian, 1860–1949
1895
An etching in which James Ensor stages a grotesque, carnival-like dinner presided over by a crowned 'King Pest,' using macabre masks to satirize social panic and mortality.
The scene is immediately claustrophobic: a tight ring of masklike, distorted faces rendered in a scratchy web of lines, with a skeletal, hovering form above and a fanlike crown behind one figure that makes the image feel both feverish and hallucinatory.
A striking example of Ensor’s Symbolist satire, this print exposes the hypocrisies and hidden fears of modern society and helped pave the way for Expressionist explorations of psychological and social distortion.
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
plate: 4 x 4 3/4" (10.2 x 12.1cm); sheet: 6 5/16 x 9 7/8" (16.1 x 25.1cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. E. Powis Jones
Accession
140.1960
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
