Among the Ceunis-related items sent to me recently by the artist’s great niece, Elsie De Cuyper, was this photograph of a painting of flowers in a vase: what I believe is known in Flemish/Dutch as a bloemstilleven, or still life with flowers.
It’s reminiscent of another painting of flowers in a glass vase by Gerard Ceunis that was sold at auction in 2014, an image of which I reproduced in this post, and which may or may not be the painting ‘Chrysanthemums’ that featured in an exhibition of Belgian art in Folkestone in 1916.
The picture sent to me by Elsie has a special poignancy, since it is believed to be the last one that Gerard Ceunis painted. In sending an image of it to the De Cuyper family, his widow Alice added in her own handwriting the words reproduced above: Dit is de laatste schilderij van oom Gerard: ‘This is the last painting by Uncle Gerard’. Especially poignant also, that in both Belgium and Britain, chrysanthemums have traditionally been seen as a symbol of death and mourning.
The Quest for Ceunis 