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Description: 1860-1949 composition (reprise de quatre OEuvres) signed and dated 1900 watercolour and brush and ink on card 35 by 48.5 cm., 13 3/4 by 19 1/8 in. Executed in 1900. Provenance Private Collection, Romania Bernd Baron von Walbrun, Berlin Acquired from the above by the present owner in the late 1980s From 1900 Ensor regularly copied his own works. He did this in some instances so he could keep the original works for himself, and sell the replicas, or sometimes collectors wanted to buy works that he had already sold, and the artist would make replicas for them. It is not clear exactly why Ensor chose to re-unite four of his well known earlier pictures in the present work. Composition (reprise de quatre oeuvres) is a unique ensemble consisting of copies after the following celebrated works: upper left: Les Chanteurs grotesques, 1891, oil on panel, 16 by 21 cm. (Xavier Tricot, James Ensor, Catalogue Raisonne of the Paintings, Antwerp, 1992, no. 323) upper right: Le Remords de l'ogre corse, circa 1890-91, oil on panel, 16 by 21 cm. (Tricot, no. 298) lower left: Mademoiselle Demolder en toreador, 1895, watercolour on paper, 26 by 34 cm. (Paul Haesaerts, James Ensor, New York, 1959, no. 329) lower right: Ensor et general Leman discutant peinture, 1890, oil on panel, 12 by 16 cm. (Tricot, no. 297) The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Xavier Tricot Olivier Bertrand has confirmed the authenticity of this work and will include it in the forthcoming Ensor Catalogue raisonne prepared for the Belgian Art Research Institute.