Lot Essay
Ensor's father was a British engineer who came to Ostend on a tourist's whim. He married a Flemish girl, Maria Catharina Haegheman. It was Catharina's souvenir and 'curiosité' shop in which she sold Far Eastern objects and Flemish carnival masks, that kept the family going after the death of Ensor's father. The masks were later to haunt the artist and served as an important source of inspiration for his unique brand of Expressionism.