James Ensor

Exhibited by Van Herck - Eykelberg

Material Oil on canvas

Dimensions 54.5 × 65.5 cm

Status Vetted

About the Work

James Ensor often used objects out of his studio for his still life paintings, most famously the masks that were sold in the souvenir shop of his parents in Ostend but as regularly everyday objects such as vegetables, glasses or flowers. Not only was the still life an important genre within the oeuvre of Ensor, it was equally the genre where the artist expressed his colorful palette to the fullest.

Dr. Herwig Todts, honorary curator at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp writes in his book ‘James Ensor, Occasional Modernist. Ensor’s Artistic and Social Ideas and the Interpretation of his Art’: ‘Over the course of 60 years, Ensor painted more than 230 still lifes, amounting to a third of his painted oeuvre. With the exception of a short break around 1885/88, he painted at least one still life a year. He considered still lifes to be the most important artistic genre and the ‘touchstone of the true colorist’.

‘Still life with lantern and vegetables’ (c. 1907) is one of the finest still life paintings by James Ensor remaining in private hands. It has a warm hue and, although neither the lantern nor the candle are lit, the objects are soaked in light. It is one of the first versions of a still life with a red cabbage – a vegetable with an irregular and whimsical shape that the artist loved to paint. The palette of colors, and the interaction between shade and light enticed the painter in returning to the subject regularly. With his practice of still life paintings Ensor places himself in the great tradition of Flemish still life painters such as Joachim Beuckelaer or Frans Snijders.

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Literature

1908 E. Verhaeren, James Ensor, Brussels, p. 121 (titled ‘Nature-morte’ and dated ‘1900’).
1921 P. Colin, James Ensor, Potsdam, p. 52 (illustrated; titled ‘Stilleben’ and dated ‘1900’).
1922 G. Le Roy, James Ensor, Brussels and Paris, p. 187 (titled ‘Nature Morte’ and dated ‘1900’).
1929 Art et décoration, p. 5 (titled ‘La lanterne’).
1929 ‘Les ventes’, in Le Bulletin de l’Art, no. 757, April 1929, p. 166 (titled ‘La lanterne’).
1929 [exhibition catalogue] Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, James Ensor, no. 175, p.8
1931 P. Colin, James Ensor, Leipzig, ill. pl. 14 (titled ‘Die Lanterne’ and dated ‘1910’).
1959 P. Haesaerts, James Ensor, New York, no. 389, p. 381 (illustrated no. 99, p. 313; titled ‘Still Life with Lantern’ and dated ‘1910’).
1992 X. Tricot, James Ensor, catalogue raisonné of the paintings, vol. II, 1902-1941, London, no. 420 , p. 429 (illustrated; titled ‘Nature morte aux légumes et à la lanterne’ and dated ‘circa 1908 (1900?)’)
1997 [exhibition catalogue] London, Barbican Art Gallery, James Ensor, Theatre of masks, no. 50, p. 132
1999 [exhibition catalogue] Salzburg, Rupertinum, Eros and Death, Belgian Symbolism, p. 157 (illustrated p. 39)
2003-2004 [exhibition catalogue] Brussels, Musée d’Ixelles, Laren, Singer Museum, Masterpieces of Modern Belgian Art, June – September 2003, no. 16, p. 52 (illustrated p. 53)
2005-2006 [exhibition catalogue] Tokyo, Fuchu Art Museum, Sakura, Sakura City Museum of Art, Akita, Akita Senshu Museum of Art, Masterpieces of Modern Belgian Art, no. 25, pp. 82 and 178 (illustrated p. 83)
2007 [exhibition catalogue] Chestnut Hill MA., McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, A New Key, Modern Belgian Art, no. 24, p. 204 (illustrated)
2009 X. Tricot, James Ensor, the complete paintings, Ostfildern, no. 395, p. 328 (illustrated; dated ‘1900 (?)’)
2023-2024 [exhibition catalogue] Ostend, MuZee, Rose, Rose, Rose à mes yeux. James Ensor and still life in Belgium, no. 67, ill. p. 116