Le Pisseur (The Pisser) (D., Cr., T., E. 12)

Details

James Ensor (1860-1949)
Le Pisseur (The Pisser) (D., Cr., T., E. 12)
etching, 1887, on simili-Japan paper, signed, dated and titled in pencil, countersigned in pencil verso, with wide margins, in very good condition

P. 152 x 109 mm., S. 296 x 238 mm.

Provenance

Mira Jacob Wolfovska (1912-2004), Paris, with her blindstamp (not in Lugt).

Literature

U. Becks-Malorny, James Ensor 1860-1949: Masks, Death and the Sea, Taschen Verlag GmbH, Cologne, 2000, p. 10 (this impression illustrated).

Exhibited

Bateau Lavoir, Paris, 1978, no. 12.
Strasbourg/Basel, 1995-96, no. 14.

Special notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

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Lot Essay

Scholars have related Le Pisseur to a drawing by Jacques Callot (Uffizi, Florence) of a similar subject. In Ensor’s version a top-hatted gentleman relieves himself on a graffiti-covered wall scrawled with the legend Ensor est un fou (Ensor is a mad man). Le Pisseur has been understood as Ensor’s witty and irreverent response to his critics.

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