The Temptation of Christ
Artist / maker
James Ensor (etchers)Date
1888Period
19th centuryCollection
Museum of Fine Arts Ghent
This etching illustrates the third part of Christ's temptation by the devil. The devil takes Christ to a high mountain to show him all the kingdoms of the world. Ensor mentioned this scene in a draft of a letter (Antwerp, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, inv. 2712/219 r°). He writes that he is working on several compositions, including "The Temptation…
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This etching illustrates the third part of Christ's temptation by the devil. The devil takes Christ to a high mountain to show him all the kingdoms of the world. Ensor mentioned this scene in a draft of a letter (Antwerp, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, inv. 2712/219 r°). He writes that he is working on several compositions, including "The Temptation of Christ", for which he had already made a pen-and-ink drawing: "The devil shows with a broad gesture a vast landscape dotted with monuments, pyramids, Gothic churches, Greek temples, pagodas ... The Palace of Justice and the Town Hall of Brussels. The shadow of the devil partly covers this landscape." Ensor may have drawn inspiration from Honoré Daumier's related print "Le Tentateur", which the Frenchman published in Le Charivari in 1851.
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