The Four Temperaments.
Estimate: €60,000–80,000.
Ensor excelled in the art of drawing, using it to explore themes dear to him: the self-portrait, masks, the critique of bourgeois society, Japonism, skeletons, Christ and death.
The Four Temperaments explores the subject of the self-portrait to associate images with characteristics. We see the artist, associated with the ‘Epic’, but who has his hands tied. The other characters personify other ideas, and they collectively allude to the four temperaments.
Works On Paper
22 March 2018 | 6:00pm CET | Paris
Details from The Four Temperaments.
This very rare drawing was made at a unique moment in the life of James Ensor, when he was a frequent visitor to the Hannon-Rousseau family, who welcomed him when he was a young student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels. This period was also punctuated by cheerful group outings which also seem to be evoked in The Four Temperaments.
Works On Paper
22 March 2018 | 6:00pm CET | Paris
1. The Poetic.
Ensor lived surrounded by women who inspired him, whether they were relatives of admirers, both muses and temptresses. Here the woman is ‘poetic’, probably embodying Mariette, his great friend, the wife of Ernest Rousseau and sister of Théo Hannon, a close friend of Ensor’s and the first owner of the drawing.
Works On Paper
22 March 2018 | 6:00pm CET | Paris
2. The Epic.
This is a self-portrait, an exercise repeated several times by Ensor, which provides the spectacle of his tied hands and seems both sensitive to the ‘Poetic’ woman but also controlled by the ‘Sardonic’ figure shown behind him.
Works On Paper
22 March 2018 | 6:00pm CET | Paris
3. The Sardonic.
This character probably represents the Belgian painter Guillaume Vogels, the co-founder of the group, the XX, who influenced Ensor’s painterly technique, perhaps mocking the enterprise.
Works On Paper
22 March 2018 | 6:00pm CET | Paris
4. The Schniq(ue).
‘Schnik’ in Brussels means alcohol. People got drunk and slummed it in a ‘bar à schnik’. This already translates Ensor’s interest in folklore and popular scenes as well as the influence of his years in Brussels.
Works On Paper
22 March 2018 | 6:00pm CET | Paris
The Four Temperaments (Les quatre Tempéraments) is a rare black chalk drawing by James Ensor, created when he was about twenty years old. It will go on sale at the Works On Paper sale in Paris on 22 March. Click ahead to examine this work in more detail.
Works On Paper
22 March 2018 | 6:00pm CET | Paris