A mother bearing her child's coffin in a funeral procession for victims of the plague. Colour lithograph after F. Jenewein, 1900.

  • Jenewein, Felix, 1857-1905.
Date:
1901
Reference:
10128i
Part of:
The plague : A cycle of six pictures
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About this work

Description

Subject described by Karel B. Mádl as follows: "A universal dying spread over the towns and the country, like a rapacious flood. "Not many bodies were accompanied by a dozen neighbours; the bier was carried, not by honourable, worthy citizens, but by sextons of the lowest people, called plague servants, who were dearly paid for their service and which they performed hurridly [sic]. The priests did not lose time in saying prayers and in performing rites, and buried the bodies in an empty grave ", says Bocaccio [sic]. Jenewein is here equally striking and even more intensive than the old author. The sky is dark, the trees uplift sadly their bare branches and the gray outlines of a cathedral loom behind. In the background a long, ghastly procession with coffins hastens onward. Men quake and as a personification of human pain and terror a woman with bloodshot and staring eyes meets the procession; it is a mother, burying her own child."

Publication/Creation

Pragae [at Prague] : Sumptum fecit B. Kočí, 1901.

Physical description

1 print : lithograph, printed in colour ; image 43.3 x 37.9 cm.

Related material

Select images of this work were taken by the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum: WT/D/1/20/1/7/90

Lettering

Felix Jenewein: Pestis. F. Jenewein. 1900. Old Wellcome Museum label attached to the mount reads "The plague. Felix Jenewein."

Notes

One of six plates in a portfolio with title pages and introduction by Karel B. Mádl

Reference

Wellcome Collection 10128i

Type/Technique

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