Still Life with Sea Shells

James Ensor (Belgian, 1860–1949)

1923

Medium/TechniqueOil on paperboard mounted on a cradled wooden panel

Dimensions44.5 x 55 cm (17 1/2 x 21 5/8 in.)

Credit LineGift of G. Peabody Gardner

Accession number60.124

On View

Not on view

ClassificationsPaintings

Collections

Europe

Description

In the 1923 painting Still-Life with Sea Shells, the eccentric Belgian artist James Ensor assembled a Japanese fan, teacup, and saucer along with rare shells as a group of curiosities—the sort of things one might have found in his parents’ coastal tourist shop. Displayed beneath the lightly sketched figure of a nude in the upper-right corner, the objects recall the northern tradition of symbolically laden still-lifes and the eighteenth-century taste for chinoiserie, as well as the newly emerged Surrealist habit of searching through flea markets and antique stores for compelling oddities, often with psychosexual overtones.

InscriptionsLower right: Ensor 1923ProvenancePrivate collection, Paris; sold from private collection to the Swetzoff Gallery, Boston [see note 1]; June 22, 1959, sold by Swetzoff to G. Peabody Gardner, Boston; 1960, gift of G. Peabody Gardner to the MFA. (Accession Date: February 11, 1960)

NOTES:
[1] In a letter to Thomas Maythan of the MFA (June 29, 1960), Hyman Swetzoff wrote that the painting was purchased from a private collection in Paris; in a letter to Angelica Rudenstine of the MFA (May 3, 1963), he wrote that he was unable to reveal the name of the seller. The painting may also have been in Switzerland and Germany, as the reverse of the panel bears export stamps from those countries.