Os gendarmes

In the summer of 1887 the fishermen of Ostend rioted over cheap British fish undercutting them at the quayside. The unrest ran for several days, was put down by armed force, and men died. Ensor lived in the town, above his family's shop selling shells and carnival masks to holidaymakers, and he kept returning to the episode. He drew the massacre in 1888 and painted this five years after the event. The dead lie stretched out while the uniformed men stand over them, an arrangement he took from a well-known Belgian history picture by Louis Gallait showing the beheaded Counts Egmont and Hoorn lying in state. The painting itself is small, 55 centimetres across.