Lady with Red Parasol

This painting shows a young woman sitting on a chair holding a bright-red, open parasol in her left hand, its pole propped against her left shoulder. She is dressed in a long, dark-blue skirt with the toes of her shoes peeking out beneath, and a bright red jacket. All that is visible of the white blouse she is wearing under her jacket are the white collar and cuffs. The same female model is shown wearing the same clothes in a study for The Bourgeois Salon of 1880 (Galerie Ronny Van De Velde, Antwerp). There appears to be another clothing draped over the back of the chair. The chair seems to be a simple dining chair placed on top of a plain, rectangular wooden box. This same box appears elsewhere in various figure studies made in the studio by Ensor and Willy Finch.¹ A large charcoal and black chalk drawing from a private collection shows the same model in profile in exactly the same costume and pose. In this case, the artist – who may have been either Ensor or Willy Finch – was seated a little further to the left. The wooden box upon which the chair is placed is easier to make out in the drawing than in the painting. In the drawing, the young woman is shown with a bonnet on her head. It is clear to the naked eye that this white bonnet was overpainted in the painting. This observation was confirmed by the x-ray images made for research purposes.²

The young woman is Ensor’s younger sister Marie or Mitche (1861-1945) who frequently posed for her brother in the years 1880-85. We can find her distinctive mouth and the long bangs on her forehead in The Colourist (1881), The Oyster Eater (1882) and the lost painting, Haunted Furniture (1885 and 1888/90).

Dorine Cardijn posited that the artist painted the woman outdoors, but the background and foreground are represented so loosely that it is impossible to determine whether the young woman is shown indoors or out.³

In 1892, Ensor’s close friend, Eugène Demolder, commented upon a series of coquettes in Ensor’s work. This painting belongs to this series of young, and occasionally older, bourgeois women in various situations.⁴

The style of the painting is sketchy and the fore- and background are particularly loosely painted. The hands and white collar and cuffs of the blouse are also depicted in a very sketchy way. Here and there, the use of a palette knife also strikes the eye. This painting has a very different look to that of Girl with the Upturned Nose (1879), but the differences are less pronounced if we compare the faces in these two paintings. Ensor accentuated certain facial features in Lady with Red Parasol with a few fine, black brushstrokes. The entire composition is dominated by the bright red of the jacket and the more or less bright red area of the open parasol. The young woman's face stands out against this large, irregular red surface. Ensor must have painted over the white bonnet on her head so as not to disrupt this image.

Ensor dated this painting 1881 in the handwritten Liste de mes Oeuvres (List of my works) that he sent to Verhaeren in 1908 and Le Roy in 1922, the same year as Study for a Bourgeois Salon. Haesaerts dated the painting 1882.⁵ The technical study of the painting revealed that Ensor added his signature and the date to a dry paint layer. However, we do not know when he did this. It is not possible to date the work with greater precision on the basis of stylistic or technical observations. In the Liste de mes oeuvres, Ensor calls the painting Lady in Red, reminiscent of the titles that James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) gave to his works. Was Ensor already aware of his innovatory role as early as 1880-1882, or did he feel a need to emphasise this in any way possible after 1900?

Technical research has revealed a composition beneath the Lady with Red Parasol. The composition was partially reconstructed and shows a scene from the American War of Independence (1775-83). A medal honouring revolutionary war hero, General Daniel Morgan, had been reproduced in La Gazette des Beaux-Arts in 1878 and copied by Ensor in a sketchbook. We do not know whether Ensor later worked up this black-and-white drawing into an oil painting on his own initiative, or whether he did this as a studio exercise at the Brussels art academy.

Ensor first exhibited Lady with Red Parasol at Le Sillon in Brussels. Fellow artist, Adolphe Crespin (1859-1944), probably acquired it shortly thereafter. Crespin was a poster artist and a master of Art Nouveau sgraffito on the facades numerous Brussels bourgeois houses.

Dorine Cardijn, La dame au parasol rouge, Lydia Schoonbaert (ed.), James Ensor. Paris-Musées, 1990.
Xavier Tricot, James Ensor. Leven en werk. Oeuvrecatalogus van de schilderijen, Brussels: Mercatorfonds, 2009, nr. 165.
Herwig Todts, James Ensor, Occasional Modernist. Ensor’s Artistic and Social Ideas and the Interpretation of his Art, (XIX Studies in Nineteenth-Century Art and Visual Culture), Turnhout: Brepols, 2018.

This painting shows a young woman sitting on a chair holding a bright-red, open parasol in her left hand, its pole propped against her left shoulder. She is dressed in a long, dark-blue skirt with the toes of her shoes peeking out beneath, and a bright red jacket. All that is visible of the white blouse she is wearing under her jacket are the white collar and cuffs. The same female model is shown wearing the same clothes in a study for The Bourgeois Salon of 1880 (Galerie Ronny Van De Velde, Antwerp). There appears to be another clothing draped over the back of the chair. The chair seems to be a simple dining chair placed on top of a plain, rectangular wooden box. This same box appears elsewhere in various figure studies made in the studio by Ensor and Willy Finch.¹ A large charcoal and black chalk drawing from a private collection shows the same model in profile in exactly the same costume and pose. In this case, the artist – who may have been either Ensor or Willy Finch – was seated a little further to the left. The wooden box upon which the chair is placed is easier to make out in the drawing than in the painting. In the drawing, the young woman is shown with a bonnet on her head. It is clear to the naked eye that this white bonnet was overpainted in the painting. This observation was confirmed by the x-ray images made for research purposes.²

The young woman is Ensor’s younger sister Marie or Mitche (1861-1945) who frequently posed for her brother in the years 1880-85. We can find her distinctive mouth and the long bangs on her forehead in The Colourist (1881), The Oyster Eater (1882) and the lost painting, Haunted Furniture (1885 and 1888/90).

Dorine Cardijn posited that the artist painted the woman outdoors, but the background and foreground are represented so loosely that it is impossible to determine whether the young woman is shown indoors or out.³

In 1892, Ensor’s close friend, Eugène Demolder, commented upon a series of coquettes in Ensor’s work. This painting belongs to this series of young, and occasionally older, bourgeois women in various situations.⁴

The style of the painting is sketchy and the fore- and background are particularly loosely painted. The hands and white collar and cuffs of the blouse are also depicted in a very sketchy way. Here and there, the use of a palette knife also strikes the eye. This painting has a very different look to that of Girl with the Upturned Nose (1879), but the differences are less pronounced if we compare the faces in these two paintings. Ensor accentuated certain facial features in Lady with Red Parasol with a few fine, black brushstrokes. The entire composition is dominated by the bright red of the jacket and the more or less bright red area of the open parasol. The young woman's face stands out against this large, irregular red surface. Ensor must have painted over the white bonnet on her head so as not to disrupt this image.

Ensor dated this painting 1881 in the handwritten Liste de mes Oeuvres (List of my works) that he sent to Verhaeren in 1908 and Le Roy in 1922, the same year as Study for a Bourgeois Salon. Haesaerts dated the painting 1882.⁵ The technical study of the painting revealed that Ensor added his signature and the date to a dry paint layer. However, we do not know when he did this. It is not possible to date the work with greater precision on the basis of stylistic or technical observations. In the Liste de mes oeuvres, Ensor calls the painting Lady in Red, reminiscent of the titles that James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) gave to his works. Was Ensor already aware of his innovatory role as early as 1880-1882, or did he feel a need to emphasise this in any way possible after 1900?

Technical research has revealed a composition beneath the Lady with Red Parasol. The composition was partially reconstructed and shows a scene from the American War of Independence (1775-83). A medal honouring revolutionary war hero, General Daniel Morgan, had been reproduced in La Gazette des Beaux-Arts in 1878 and copied by Ensor in a sketchbook. We do not know whether Ensor later worked up this black-and-white drawing into an oil painting on his own initiative, or whether he did this as a studio exercise at the Brussels art academy.

Ensor first exhibited Lady with Red Parasol at Le Sillon in Brussels. Fellow artist, Adolphe Crespin (1859-1944), probably acquired it shortly thereafter. Crespin was a poster artist and a master of Art Nouveau sgraffito on the facades numerous Brussels bourgeois houses.

Dorine Cardijn, La dame au parasol rouge, Lydia Schoonbaert (ed.), James Ensor. Paris-Musées, 1990.
Xavier Tricot, James Ensor. Leven en werk. Oeuvrecatalogus van de schilderijen, Brussels: Mercatorfonds, 2009, nr. 165.
Herwig Todts, James Ensor, Occasional Modernist. Ensor’s Artistic and Social Ideas and the Interpretation of his Art, (XIX Studies in Nineteenth-Century Art and Visual Culture), Turnhout: Brepols, 2018.

Lady with Red Parasol is painted on a regular, even-weave, commercially made canvas. It has lost its tacking margins during a restoration intervention. The canvas is lined with wax resin hiding any stamps or inscriptions that may be present beneath.

There is a white, lead-based ground layer on the canvas but this is not visible to the naked eye anywhere, as it is entirely covered by paint layers. Ensor painted Lady with Red Parasol on top of another composition that is visible on x-ray. There exists a sketch of the underlying composition that Ensor made after an etching by Jules Jaquemart of a medal by Morgan Dupré. The MA-XRF scans only show a small detail of the underlying image in the mercury image: the torso and hat of the fallen soldier. The infrared image reveals no carbon-based underdrawing.

Both compositions were painted in oil paint and the underlying composition appears to still be visible in a few places through the paint layer above. Ensor rotated the painting a quarter turn before painting the Lady with Red Parasol. He began by setting out a rough sketch of the composition in black paint. He applied his paint with both coarse-bristled, and finer, softer brushes, as well as a palette knife. He initially painted a white bonnet on the lady’s head. He subsequently overpainted this bonnet with a thin layer of brown paint to turn it into the woman’s hair.

The pigments Ensor used were vermilion, earth pigments, cobalt blue and ultramarine and/or Prussian blue, chrome yellow and possibly chrome green. The presence of manganese in some of the earth pigments may indicate Sienna or umber.

The painting is signed in red paint at lower right Ensor 80 on top of an already dry paint layer.
The varnish layer is thick and its application is uneven. White crystalline specks are visible across the entire surface of the painting. It is not clear whether these are contained within the varnish layer or have arisen out of the paint layer.

The work is painted on an even-weave canvas. The tacking margins of the original canvas have been cut off as part of a restoration intervention.

The thread count per cm2 is hard to ascertain given that the canvas cannot be seen anywhere through the lining attached to the back of the canvas. However, the x-ray shows that it is a very regular (commercially woven) canvas.

The tacking margins of the original canvas were cut off as part of a restoration intervention. The canvas was glued to a new support – lined – with wax resin. This new support is fairly coarse in texture with a very hard feel as a result of being impregnated with wax resin.

The pXRF measurements indicate that the ground layer is mostly composed of lead (Pb), although some calcium (Ca) was also found in every measurement taken. This suggests that calcium had been added to the mixture by the manufacturer.¹

The canvas has been reused: Lady with Red Parasol is painted on top of another painting. As a result, the ground layer is covered by too many paint layers for it to be visible to the naked eye. The ground layer appears quite even; it was probably commercially applied. When the canvas was lined, its tacking margins were cut off quite roughly through the paint layers: this provides us with their cross section.

The cross section of the paint layers is quite complex, with 8 consecutive layers visible under digital magnification. A white intermediate layer may have been applied over the initial composition to provide an even white layer (either layer number 5 or 7) on which the new composition of the Lady with Red Parasol was painted. It is uncertain whether layers 5 and/or 7 are part of the paint layer or whether one is an even white intermediate layer. The cross section of the paint layer can only be seen at this particular point, but this does not mean that it is the same elsewhere in the painting. In other places, the colour of the underpainting seems to show through the paint layers.

No carbon-based underdrawing is visible under infrared light. This does not necessarily mean that there is no underdrawing present; merely, that if there is one, it cannot be detected with infrared light. The model for this painter was Ensor’s sister whose portrait he made on several occasions, as evidenced by the many sketches in which she figures. Such familiarity with his subject might have caused him to require less meticulous preparation.

There is a second composition beneath Lady with Red Parasol. The infrared radiation may not have penetrated deeply enough to pick up signals from the painting beneath; as a result, no carbon-based underdrawing has been detected for the underlying composition either. A preparatory drawing on paper exists for the scene depicted in the underlying painting, as seen on the x-ray (see the section on the underlying paint layer). It is entirely possible that Ensor did not make an underdrawing in a dry, carbon-based drawing medium at all. More plausibly, he laid out his initial design in oil paint – as he did on other occasions when working on canvas – and that he followed this sketch when developing his painting.

The x-ray provides a view of the underlying composition. Ensor rotated his canvas by a quarter turn for his new design. The large quantities of lead white detected do not equate to the image above; only at head level is there a white bonnet visible that can be interpreted as the initial design of the overlying painting – we seem to be looking here at a pentimento introduced during the painting process: Ensor began by painting the lady with a white bonnet on her head only to paint over it later with a thin layer of brown paint that looks like hair.

One of Ensor’s drawings in the collection shows General Morgan’s rising army, copied from a medal or coin. This image corresponds quite closely to the tracing of the underlying painting. This may have been an academic study.

At first glance, the MA-XRF scans reveal little of the underlying composition, probably because the components of the pigments used are too close to each other and/or because a lead white intermediary layer was applied between the two compositions. Regardless, the fallen soldier in the foreground can be clearly made out on the lead (Pb-L) and mercury (Hg-L) scans.
The figure wears a red bonnet and red top, the negative image of what we can see on the lead scan.

Both paint layers are executed in oil paint. There do not appear to be any adhesion issues between the paint layers. However, there is very pronounced craquelure of a sort found elsewhere on works painted on top an older painting.

An underlying paint layer shows through the upper paint layer in several places; this may be the paint layer of the underlying painting. This can be seen, for example, in the red areas, near the arm where a grey colour is visible between the paint strokes. An underlying colour – in a shade of bluish-grey – can also be seen in the parasol.

If Ensor did not apply a white intermediate layer on top the underlying composition, then the underlying composition would have remained visible while he was painting Lady with Red Parasol, as was the case of Still Life with Chinoiseries that was painted on top of the study of an old man. Ensor seems to have made a very rough sketch of the figure in black paint with a hard-bristled brush. Traces of this can still be seen here and there around the parasol. The black railing on which the woman rests her arm seems to have extended further in the initial design and still shows through the red of her sleeve.

Once again, Ensor played with textures here. This is particularly visible around the parasol. He has applied his paint with a combination of a palette knife, brushstrokes from a hard-bristled brush, and with the flat side of the brush (tamponing).

In addition to coarse brushstrokes, Ensor also used a fine brush for the face, applying his paint with quite dry strokes; giving extra emphasis to the eyes and the outline of the nose. Ensor used much more colour for the face than we might at first imagine. The orange strokes around the eyes, nose and mouth are typical of several other portraits (such as Girl with Upturned Nose, 1879, inv. 2077, KMSKA), but the blue paintstrokes around the eyes that can be observed on the other works are missing here.

The skirt was painted by initially filling in the area loosely with dilute, dark-blue paint, then adding lighter blue accent touches with a palette knife to render its form and texture. The colour shades and technique recall other works, such as Lady at the Breakwater (1880, inv. 3384, KMSKA) and Lady with Fan (1880 or 1881, inv. 2833, KMSKA).

Ensor clearly made a change to the woman’s head during the painting process.
An underlying form can be observed under raking light; this is also visible in normal light. The lady initially wore a white bonnet which Ensor subsequently overpainted. Its form shows up clearly on the x-ray and on the element distribution map for lead (Pb-L). Some of the paint seems to have been applied with a palette knife in a technique similar to that used for the woman’s collar, suggesting that this is a pentimento, rather than a signal from the painting beneath.

The craquelure is more pronounced in this area, which indicates that the hair was painted before the bonnet had completely dried.

These pigments were analysed by Geert van der Snickt on the basis of seven pXRF measurements. The text below is based on these analyses² and the results of an MA-XRF scan.

In the white areas, lead (Pb) was the element predominantly detected, which is standard for this period. Quite a lot of mercury and sulphur (Hg and S) were found in the red areas, indicating the use of vermilion (HgS). Iron (Fe) was also detected in every measurement; a similar combination of reds was found in almost all the of Ensor’s paintings investigated to date.

Cobalt (Co) was detected in the blue areas, indicating the use of cobalt blue. Another blue that does not contain cobalt was also used. The pXRF measurements indicate the possible use of Prussian blue or ultramarine. The dark green cushion on the chair contains chrome, but it is unclear whether this is chrome green or whether chrome yellow was mixed with another pigment to make green. Chrome was also detected in the yellow/brown parasol pole, which may indicate the use of chrome yellow.

Plenty of iron (Fe) was detected across the entire surface of the work, which suggests the use of earth pigments. Iron (Fe-K) and barium (Ba-L) are present in the red of the parasol and the woman’s jacket. A darker iron- and manganese-based pigment was used for the chair on which the lady rests her arm; this may indicate the use of Sienna or umber. Zinc and iron were detected in the parasol pole and in parts of the background.

Lower right
Ensor 80

The signature and date were added in quite dry red paint on top of the already dry paint layer: Ensor 80.

The varnish layer is unusually thick and its application is uneven; it may have been added during F. Bender’s 1963 restoration.³ According to his report, it was a colourless, dilute dammar resin.

There are visible white flecks on or under the varnish across the painting’s entire surface. It is not completely clear whether these are deposits on the layers or surface deterioration. These flecks are crystalline in structure and come in a range of sizes. The cracks in the paint layer run through the middle of these white flecks in some place. Similar flecks have been observed on two other works, namely Back of a Chair (1880, inv. 3978, KMSKA) and Lady with Fan (1880 or 1881, inv. 2833, KMSKA). If this is deterioration, then it may be some form of efflorescence. Further analysis is necessary to establish exactly what this is.

Georges Giroux Collection, Brussels; A. Crespin Collection, Brussels; bought at auction by Galerie Georges Giroux, Brussels, 1930, lot no. 48.

1963: restoration by Frederik Bender.
27/08/1999 condition report and handling report by Ineke Labarque: condition report for museum loan, dusting of front and back of painting and removal of grime between canvas and stretcher. Repair of scratches in varnish with brush and dammar varnish. Addition of watercolour retouche to black chairback. Consolidation of loose parts of the frame with Mowilith DMC2, replacing and fixing stretcher keys. Addition of watercolour retouches to frame where white plaster was visible. Colouring of brown paper edges protruding from rebate with watercolour; addition of felt and balsa wood slats to rebate; addition of protection to back of work.
4/09/2003: conservation report and condition report by Gwen Borms. Surface cleaning, small retouches to the frame and checking of paint layer.

1909, Brussels, Musée Moderne, Le Sillon. XVIme Salon annuel, no. 33;
1929, Brussels, Centre for Fine Arts, James Ensor, no. 140;
1939, Parjs, La Gazette des Beaux-Arts et Beaux-Arts, Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Ensor, no. 17;
1950, Bosvoorde, Salons van 't Hoog Huis, 5th Exhibition, no. 10;
1951, Antwerp, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, James Ensor. Retrospective, no. 19, image no. 16;
1956, Breda, Cultureel Centrum Beyerd, Confrontatie Noord / Zuid, no. 28;
1956/ 1957, Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Belgian Art of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Van Meunier to Permeke;
1959, Krefeld, Museum Haus Lange, James Ensor (no catalogue);
1961, Otterlo, Kröller-Müller Museum, Ensor. 1860/1949, no. 9, image;
1961, Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Ensor. 1860/1949, no. 9, image;
1970, Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, En liten bok om Ensor, no. 8;
1983, Antwerp, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, James Ensor, no. 28;
1989, Munich, Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, James Ensor. Belgien um 1900, no. 5, image p. 67;
1990, Paris, Musée du Petit Palais, James Ensor, no. 14, image p. 95;
1993/ 1994, Antwerp, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, In depot / uit depot. De modernen in het koninklijk museum;
1999/ 2000, Brussels, Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, Ensor, no. 24, image p. 87;
2003, Saint Petersburg, Russian Ethnographic Museum, James Ensor (1860-1949). Antwerp presents a Painter, no. 4, image;
2010, Mexico, Xochimilco, Museo Dolores Olmedo Patinõ, James Ensor, image p. 45;
2010/ 2011, Brussels, ING Cultural Center, Ensor Unmasked, no. 116, image p. 108;
2011, The Hague, Gemeentemuseum, James Ensor. Universum van een fantast, image p. 91;
2012, Aichi, Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, James Ensor in Context. Ensor and the History of European Art from the Collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, no. 81, image p. 096;
2012, Ehime, The Museum of Art, James Ensor in Context. Ensor and the History of European Art from the Collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, no. 81, image p. 096;
2012, Tokyo, Seiji Togo Memorial Sompo Japan Museum of Art, James Ensor in Context. Ensor and the History of European Art from the Collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, no. 81, image p. 096;
2012/ 2013, Iwate, Iwate Museum of Art, James Ensor in Context. Ensor and the History of European Art from the Collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, no. 81, image p. 096;
2013, Okayama, The Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art, James Ensor in Context. Ensor and the History of European Art from the Collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, no. 81, image p. 096;
2013/ 2014, Ordrupgaard, James Ensor Fra Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen og schweiziske samlinger, no. 11, image;
2014, Basel, Kunstmuseum, Die überraschten Masken: James Ensor aus dem Königlichen Museum für Schöne Künste Antwerpen und Schweizer Sammlungen, no 11, image;
2014, Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, The Getty Center, The Scandalous Art of James Ensor (no catalogue);
2014/ 2015, Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, Temptation: The Demons of James Ensor (no catalogue);
2018/ 2020, Ostend, Mu.ZEE, Dreams of Mother-of-Pearl. De ENSOR-verzameling van het KMSKA in Oostende, image p. 55;