Avarice from the cycle The Deadly Sins

Ensor did not distinguish the importance of format for his communications. A tiny drawing or print was to him just as important as a large painting. He favoured the etching technique, which enabled him to capture the delicacy of the drawing. In the cycle The Deadly Sins he brought the traditional theme of Christian morality up to date. On the first print Death as a skeleton embraces seven figures personifying the Seven Deadly Sins and on the following prints he shifts the individual sins into the time of his contemporaries. These are tiny satirical tales as records of inter-personal tricks, villainies, fears and extremes watched over by Death or a small devil.