Lynsey, resident:
In the original painting, the woman is holding a fish in her left hand and a wig in her right. Street artist Jaune turned it into our kitty. That would surely have made Ensor smile.
It’s useful to know that Ensor grew up in his family’s souvenir shop on his mother’s side. It was like Aladdin’s cave, containing shells, masks, stuffed animals and even a mermaid composed of the mummified body of a fish and a monkey’s head. But there were also live animals. Several cats wound their way between the shells and curiosities. It smelled a bit like cat urine. His eccentric grandmother even had a monkey and a parrot, who she took on her walks through the streets of Ostend. Our James stuck to his two pugs.
Later in his life, Ensor wrote a couple of pamphlets in which he expressed his outrage at animal cruelty. Especially at the practice of vivisection: animal testing on live dogs and monkeys. He was a real animal lover. And here’s a little anecdote: when they once asked him about his favourite animals, he cited the crazy crab, the butterfly, the stoat and the plithofritocinocampophotobarbeaumussidextrispiliomekostino. Mary Poppins could learn a thing or two from that!