Azaleas

The painting depicts objects placed on a marble table top. These comprise a small sculpture of a female nude viewed from the rear, three houseplants with the azalea in the middle and an alocasia to its right, and a large shell at the foot of a basket containing the azalea. There are two additional shells on the far right. The basket containing the azalea is sitting on a white plate on a yellow table runner patterned with orange flowers and green leaves. The terracotta pot containing the tall alocasia plant sits on a white bowl plate. The artist’s Virgin of Consolation is reproduced at the top left-hand corner. This painting-within-a-painting is shown without a frame but is ornamented with a blue flower. Several masks are shown in profile on the right-hand side of the painting. The background is painted in shades of mother-of-pearl.

Azaleas were grown in Belgium from the early 19th century and their cultivation in the Ghent region began around 1825. They became a major Belgian export product. Azaleas flower between April and June, depending on their variety. In the Ghent area, azaleas were typically sold in baskets. The baskets seem to have been appreciated for their rustic appearance and may also have provided good drainage and air circulation around the roots.¹ Plants from South America, Asia and Africa had been imported into Europe since the 16th century as a consequence of voyages of discovery and colonisation.

Over the course of 60 years, Ensor painted more than 230 still lifes, amounting to a third of his painted oeuvre. With the exception of a short break around 1885/88, Ensor painted at least one still life a year. He considered the still life the most important genre and the touchstone of the true colourist.²

From 1913 onwards, Ensor included the small nude sculpture of Venus after her bath in some of his still lifes. He incorrectly referred to all porcelain figurines of this type as Tanagra, for a reason we do not know. From 1889 onwards, he occasionally experimented with staging his still lifes as narratives with some kind of interaction seeming to take place between the various objects and the masks looming at the rear or to the sides of his compositions. At the same time, he made his backgrounds colouristically appealing. He often chose a mother-of-pearl effect. On several occasions in the 1920s and 30s, Ensor included a painting-within-a-painting by depicting one of his own works in the background of a composition, but he had already experimented with citing his own work much earlier in My Favourite Room of 1892 and the Skeleton Painter of 1896. On this occasion, he chose his 1891 Virgin of Consolation. The juxtaposition of a depiction of the Virgin Mary and a sculpture of the nude Venus may have amused him. He certainly included similar touches of humour in other still lifes. In any case, the picture is dominated by the pink of the flowers. The same pink can be found in the floor upon which he kneels in his copy of the Virgin of Consolation.

From 1882, Ensor often painted still lifes with flowers, but this was the only time he depicted azaleas. In the years 1920-30, Ensor opted on several occasions to show the table top and the objects upon it frontally, keeping the illusion of space to a minimum. For reasons that remain unclear, this painting has been dated circa 1926; it is not currently possible to date it more accurately on the basis of its composition, design or colour choices.³

The Antwerp diamond dealer and Zionist, Oscar Fischer (1875-1947), donated the work to the KMSKA in 1937 before moving to Tel Aviv. He also donated My Favourite Room of 1892 and a nature study from Ensor’s youth to the Art Museum in Tel Aviv.⁴ Fischer also owned work by Maurice De Vlaminck, Marc Chagall, Maurice Utrillo and Paul Signac. This still life was personally chosen by head curator Arthur Cornette during a visit to Fischer. I chose that wonderful pink symphony, noted Cornette on 27 August 1937.⁵