Fleurs et papillons

The house this picture hangs in belonged to Henri Van Cutsem, a Brussels collector who put money behind Belgian artists at a time when there was very little money in it, and Ensor was one of the painters he supported. In 1890, the year after this canvas was made, Van Cutsem bought the mansion in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode that holds it now and hired the young Victor Horta, soon to be famous for his Art Nouveau town houses, to rebuild and extend it. Van Cutsem left the house to the sculptor Guillaume Charlier, and Charlier's will opened it as a public museum in 1928. The flowers and butterflies still hang in a drawing room rather than a gallery, among the tapestries and furniture of the household that kept them.