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an old document with writing on it sitting on top of a table
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220 - James ENSOR (1860–1949). Signed autograph manuscript, Ostend…
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Estimate €1,000 - €1,200
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Description
James ENSOR (1860–1949). Signed autograph manuscript, Ostend, June 1939; 2 folio pages. Preface for the catalogue of the Ensor exhibition in Paris, organised by Georges Wildenstein at the Gazette des Beaux-Arts in June–July 1939; 211 works by Ensor were on display. This manuscript was intended to be reproduced as a line drawing. ‘Generous friends of Paris and France. I send you my greetings […] I have kept and gazed upon certain favourite works, or those marking a significant date, for far too long in the cosy sanctuary of my studio – thanks to you, thanks to Léo van Puyvelde, our curator of the fine arts, my *Entry of Christ into Brussels* from 1889, a painting virtually untouched by exhibition, is today submitted to the sovereign verdict of beloved Paris.” He cherished the memory of the warm reception given to his exhibition at the Jeu de Paume in 1932, attended by the statesmen Monzie and Édouard Herriot, and ‘not to mention our good kings, reformist princes and their chosen queens, yellow ambassadors or green academicians, black collectors, those from all the churches, temples, synagogues or pyramidal cathedrals, and the devout believers raised their bourgeois index fingers and their distant visions of worlds where hope dwells, and their et cetera, etc., etc. praised my pictorial and musical deeds and gestures. Later, old-school investigators—in search of youth or maggots, and guided by canine instincts—sprang up along my main roads, planed down my footpaths, chiselled my cobblestones, swept my crossroads. But you, charming ladies of France, you have little love for gloomy arts. I admire you with all my eyes. Sweet perfumes, fragrant nectars, the pearly tears of my darlings, crimson colours and flowers, the adornment of my thoughts. Where I live, the sea is beautiful; the blue water turns greyish under the moon’s rays, and the musky bather sways delightfully. I am burning the candle at both ends to pay tribute to Mlle Assia Rubinstein, the devoted secretary of the *Gazette des Beaux-Arts*, as well as the director Georges Wildenstein, the ‘accommodating collectors’ of France and Belgium, and Paris, ‘the vital circle of great art, comprising […] the foremost wonder and the first in the world, of all worlds. Paris, flower of eternity’. And he adds a few lines at the beginning to apologise to the Parisian public, as he is ‘deprived, by order of the Faculty, of the pleasure of attending the opening of the exhibition of my works’…
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About the sale Letters and Autograph Manuscripts – Part II
Auction location
Auction time 10/14/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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