De oestereetster werd afgewezen door het Antwerpse Salon in 1882, en het jaar daarop weigerde de kunstvereniging "L'Essor" het eveneens wegens de onconventionele compositie. Het werd voor het eerst tentoongesteld in 1886 op het Salon van "Les XX".
When he read about the Impressionists he began to feel an itch. This was the direction he now wanted to pursue, but how? According to what he had read, it was a question of pure rather than mixed colours. Ensor’s sister Mitche was used to posing for him and so he placed her at the table once again. He prepared his canvas in the same way as always too, with a ground layer. But then he did something new, setting his colours down unmixed: chrome yellow, vermilion, cobalt blue and lots and lots of white lead. Ensor initially titled the resulting piece In the Land of Colour, but we now know this scintillating painting as the Oyster Eater. Done in 1882, it marked a complete break with his earlier dark, bourgeois interiors.