Untitled (Een Beul / An Executioner)

Though Marius Bauer earned fame as a painter, he was a master printmaker too. The seventeenth century Dutch great Rembrandt is often considered the inspiration for Bauer’s etchings. This work pre-dates Bauer’s first India trip in 1897-98 and seems to be a reproduction of a rather ghastly scene of a human being about to be executed by another. Given the theme of the etching, it is a rare work, and also offers a glimpse into the mind of the artist, who must have been moved enough by the act of execution to devote a work of art to it.