Multiplication des Poissons

In this etching the avant-garde painter and printmaker James Ensor reworked a traditional biblical subject—Christ feeding a large crowd by miraculously multiplying loaves and fish. He was inspired by Rembrandt’s religious etchings, but the crowd of leering faces owes more to the work of eighteenth-century printmakers he admired, including William Hogarth and Francisco Goya.

Feeling persecuted by harsh critics and an unresponsive public, Ensor came to identify with the figure of Christ, whom he depicted regularly in his work between 1880 and 1900.