The Cathedral
Artist / maker
James Ensor (etchers)Date
1886Period
19th centuryCollection
Museum of Fine Arts Ghent
The etching "The Cathedral" is one of Ensor's most famous etchings. It is a fairly faithful reproduction of the choir of Aachen Cathedral, with the exception of the towers, which the artist added himself. For the etching, Ensor drew his inspiration from a watercolour of 1836 by the Dutch artist Gerrit Hulseboom (Aachen, Historisches Museum). On the other hand, the…
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The etching "The Cathedral" is one of Ensor's most famous etchings. It is a fairly faithful reproduction of the choir of Aachen Cathedral, with the exception of the towers, which the artist added himself. For the etching, Ensor drew his inspiration from a watercolour of 1836 by the Dutch artist Gerrit Hulseboom (Aachen, Historisches Museum). On the other hand, the crowd huddled together in the foreground is typical of Ensor's mass scenes. In 1896 he reworked the same etching in a second plate, because according to his biographer Albert Croquez the first had been lost. The museum owns two prints of the second plate.
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