This is a rare hand-colored version of Ensor's most famous etching. The etching was completed in 1898, ten years after Ensor finished the mural-sized painting of the same subject. Ensor was one of the forerunners of the Expressionist movement. Born in Ostend, the Belgian seaport on the North Sea, he entered the Brussels Academy to study art at the age of 17. By the time he was 23, he joined Les XX (The Twenty), which organized exhibitions, sponsored lectures by young writers and played avant-garde music.

The Art Center's work, which is heightened by reds and greens and yellows, is an updating and a relocation of the traditional theme of the entry of Christ into Jersusalem. Ensor brought his Christ in Brussels, apparently at Mardi Gras, for color and excitement abound, though not joy or good will. Banners proclaiming various political figures of the day and various businesses appear throughout the work. The caricatures and mask-like faces are menacing and the haloed figure of Christ in the center is nearly lost in the mass of humanity. Ensor very pointedly indicates that the reappearance of Christ into contemporary society would have had the same tragic result as did Christ's entry into Jerusalem.

Source: Bulletin, January-Februart 1972.