La Van Iseghemlaan sous la neige

Ostend in 1881 lived on its summer season, on bathers and the casino crowd, and out of season the avenues that carried all that traffic stood empty. Ensor was 21 and still at his parents' house on the corner of the Van Iseghemlaan, working in the attic he had taken over as his first studio, with a view down over the street and out to the sea. The snow here is put down in small strokes on a wooden panel about 26 by 32 centimetres, no bigger than a sheet of writing paper. Mu.ZEE keeps it a few minutes' walk from where he stood. Set it beside the street itself and the topography runs the wrong way round: he painted the whole view in mirror image.