The eye is instantly caught by the monumental number “132,” rendered with a theatrical flourish, dominating the frame like a billboard for a spectacle both macabre and mesmerizing. Below, a skeletal figure—yellowed as if jaundiced by hunger—lounges on a pillow, calmly reading as smoke curls from its pipe, a chilling parody of leisure. The border’s geometric pattern pens in the scene like the bars of a cage, while the bold, blocky text trumpets the event: the 132nd day of fasting by the famous hunger artist, A.

Lucci. Every element here is a performance, from the exaggerated script to the almost cartoonish morbidity of the figure, drawing the viewer into a world where endurance is both art and ordeal. Created in 1907, this print by Moriz Jung belongs to a moment when the European fascination with “hunger artists”—performers who fasted publicly as a form of entertainment—reached its peak. Such acts, blending spectacle, suffering, and celebrity, haunted the cabarets and variety theaters of the early twentieth century, especially in cities like Vienna and Berlin.

The print’s stark palette and stylized forms echo the visual language of the Viennese Secession, a movement that reveled in bold design and psychological tension. History has kept few traces of individual hunger artists, but works like this, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection, remind us how the era’s anxieties and obsessions found their way into even the most unlikely corners of popular culture. Let your gaze linger on the skeletal reader—he is both a warning and a curiosity, inviting you to imagine the strange allure of spectacle in a restless age.