Le Flacon bleu

In 1877 James Ensor enrolled at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, where he stayed for three years before he left because he felt his work did not get the recognition it deserved. In the years just after Ensor left the academy he painted several still lifes that depict different ingredients for meals, placed on wooden tables in the kitchen: fruit, vegetables, fish, meat and poultry were the main focus in these paintings.

The present lot was painted in 1880. The composition is formed by a blue bottle on the left, a featherless chicken in the middle with its head falling slightly over the edge of the table and a copper pan on the right, turned upside down. The composition of the still life is kept simple, the precise form and identity of the objects is neglected to put emphasis on the intricate play of light and dark and the subtlety of the colours used in this painting. This particular composition, featuring the striking blue bottle, was painted by Ensor four times over the course of forty-five years and clearly shows Ensor’s development as a painter. While the early versions are subtle in colour, the last painting in this series, painted in 1925, is filled with the bright colours typical of Ensor’s later style (X. Tricot, James Ensor, Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, Brussels 2009, no. 540).