Stoet artsen arriveert bij de reeds overleden patiënten 1800 - 1805

Jacob Ernst Marcus created this print, "A procession of doctors arrives at patients who have already died," sometime during his life using etching. Here, death is not a solitary event but a public spectacle. Skeletons, symbols of mortality, parade through the streets, mocking the inefficacy of physicians. This procession echoes the medieval 'Dance of Death,' a motif where skeletons lead the living to their graves, a stark reminder of life's ephemerality. Notice how the doctors, oblivious or indifferent, are preoccupied with their own affairs? This recalls images of doctors from the plague era wearing bird-like masks to protect themselves from disease, their true effectiveness questionable. The emotional weight of such a scene is intense; it speaks to a collective fear of death and a distrust of those meant to protect us, emotions that resonate deeply within the human psyche. These themes of death and ineffectual authority are cyclical, recurring throughout art history, evolving yet always reminding us of our shared fate.