The Stars in the Cemetery, 1888

Ensor was not a born etcher, and the tricks of the trade interested him less than, for example, contemporaries such as Félicien Rops and Armand Rassenfosse. He etched intuitively, preferably in small format. When he started experiments, the result was usually not very convincing. In some cases, he even messed up the plate. The print "The Stars in the Cemetery" is an example of this. The original etched burlesque figures disappeared through a plate that was too heavily engraved, revealing a sort of starry sky. He then engraved gravestones in the foreground with drypoint. In a letter to Valère-Gille, he described his etching technique as follows: "I do not control the profession of an etcher at all. I draw and engrave neatly but otherwise I leave everything to chance. I don't know all the tricks and manoeuvres of the etching process, so I have damaged many plates and spoilt my eyes unnecessarily."