Small Still Life with Fish, Shrimp & Lemon by Émile Lecomte, 1935

Fish. Shrimp. One outrageously yellow lemon.

That's the entire cast of a proper market still life, and Émile Lecomte painted them in 1935 with the loose, unhurried confidence of someone who'd clearly done this a hundred times before lunch. Nothing fussy. Nothing precious. Just the day's catch tumbled across a crumpled white cloth — silvery herring, a heap of rosy North Sea shrimp, and that lemon doing the absolute most, as lemons in still lifes always do!

We love this one for exactly what it isn't. It isn't grand. It isn't showing off. It's the kind of painting that looks like it was dashed off in an afternoon and has been quietly charming rooms ever since.

And the scale is the secret. Small enough to rescue the awkward corner that never quite works, to lean on a kitchen shelf between the cookbooks, or to layer into a gallery wall among mirrors and bigger paintings, where it will absolutely hold its own. (Small paintings are the unsung heroes of a well-dressed wall — they do the flirting while the big ones do the shouting.)

Émile Lecomte (1866–1938) was a Belgian, Brussels-trained painter, better known for his impressionist landscapes but plainly at home with a fish and a fruit. Those pink shrimp are a wink to his North Sea world — still beloved on the Belgian and Dutch coasts today.

Signed and dated upper right: Émile Lecomte, 1935.

Its condition?
The painting is in a lovely, clean, colourful condition. There's fine craquelure across the surface, entirely in keeping with a near-90-year-old oil — and honestly, it adds to the charm rather than distracting from it. No noticeable overpaint; the colours (that lemon especially) stay fresh and vivid. There's also a handwritten pencil inscription on the reverse, now too faint to read with any certainty — a quiet little mystery left by its past. The gilded frame is a good, well-matched later addition — its Schleiper label dates it to around the 1960s-1970s rather than the 1930s — and it too is in good condition, with only light, honest scratches and age-wear. Nothing serious anywhere.

Fresh catch, bright citrus, and that unmistakable painterly nonchalance. Not just a nice painting. Atmosphere, ready for your wall!