From 9 April to 26 June 2011, the Museum of Fine Arts Ghent exhibited the entire ‘Miserere’ series by Georges Rouault (Paris, 1871-1958). It includes 58 large prints, engraved between 1922 and 1927, and is considered the most important and most sensitive series in the artist’s graphic oeuvre.
Most of the themes of the prints arose during the First World War, and have to do with human suffering and the cruelty of war. The prints were executed by Jacquemin, the Parisian master printer, at the initiative of the gallery owner Ambroise Vollard. Vollard did not release them, and they were still in his possession at the time of his unexpected death. They were not published until 1948.