James Ensor, Afternoon in Ostend, 1881

by Atelier Liesjes

In a dim, brownish-green room, two women are seated at a round table. On the left sits a woman in a long, ochre dress with a white collar and a straw hat with a yellow bow; her face is pale and she is looking at the viewer. The dress falls in heavy folds to the floor. On the right, turned slightly away, sits a second woman in a green dress with a white collar, her hands resting by a cup. On the table, covered with a reddish-brown cloth, stands a black tray with a silver teapot, a milk jug and cups. Behind them stands a marble mantelpiece with a clock and two vases; on the right, the last of the grey daylight streams in through a tall window. The signature is at the bottom left. The interior is rendered with broad, mottled brushstrokes, almost like a watercolour painted in oil: the walls, the rug and the furniture blend into one another; only the faces and the table remain in sharp focus. The tea table with its silverware is the only thing that glints in this dark room. The atmosphere is that of a quiet afternoon in a town house, where time passes slowly; no story, no drama, just light and company. Ensor painted this kind of intimate interior in his early years, in a style of realism akin to the work of his compatriots and the French naturalists. James Ensor (Ostend 1860, Ostend 1949) was not yet twenty when he painted this interior scene, shortly after his first years at the Brussels Academy. It is one of the earliest interior scenes he kept. Later, he would swap the room for masks, skeletons and a vivid, satirical palette, but his interest in light and stillness remained. A warm, tranquil work set in a classical interior, with the charm of an early Ensor.