Nature morte dans l'atelier

The Ensors kept a souvenir shop in Ostend, run by the painter's mother and aunt for the summer visitors, selling shells, Chinese porcelain and carnival masks. He worked in the attic above it, and most of what he painted came off the shelves downstairs. That is what has been piled on this table in 1889. A small plaster group, a Chinese dish, a violin, his palette with the brushes still lying across it, and the masks, crowding in from the wall behind and pressing down from the top of the canvas. The masks were seasonal stock. Ostend held a masked ball every winter and the shop laid in for it. Ensor was 29 here and had been painting these same objects for years. He lived over the shop until 1917, and Munich bought the picture from a private owner in 1960.