#belgian painter

[edwardian-girl-next-door]

~ Alfred Stevens, The Parisian Sphynx (1870) (detail)

This painting depicts French artist and model Victorine-Louise Meurent. She is mostly known as the model for many of Edouard Manet's paintings, including Olympia and Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe; however, she was a successful artist in her own right, and was accepted to the Salon of 1876 when Manet was not.

via wikimedia commons

[galleryofart]

Ready for the Fancy Dress Ball

Artist: Alfred Stevens (Belgian 1823-1906)

Date: 1879

Medium:

Collection: Private collection

Description

By 1879, the year in which Ready for the Fancy Dress Ball was painted, Alfred Stevens had reached the height of his career and was among the most successful artists of the era. Stevens’ success can be attributed to years of intense training under François-Joseph Navez and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, as well as support from his family, who took an active interest in the arts (his brother Joseph was a fine animal painter and Arthur a prominent critic, curator and dealer). Stevens obviously attracted a broad array, both in Europe as well as America, as his pictures were acquired by great institutions and dignitaries, such as the Brussels Museum and the Belgian King Leopold. At the Exposition Universelle in Paris of 1867, he triumphed with eighteen entries, a first-class medal, and promotion to officer of the Legion d’Honneur. While Stevens was respected within Imperial circles and invited to balls at the Tuileries, he felt equally at ease with avant-garde luminaries within Édouard Manet’s circle, where he was friends with Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot and Charles Baudelaire. Stevens’ commercial success enabled him to collect, and the beautiful period furnishings, pictures and objects that he amassed in his spectacular residence are often featured prominently in his paintings and provide a glimpse into the fashionable taste of the age. The present work is no exception.

[solcattus]

The proposal, c. 1850

By Adolf Alexander Dillens

[theaskew]

Sanam Khatibi (Belgian b. 1979 in Iran), Garden Scene (it is said they are each other), 2022. Oil and pencil on canvas, 210 x 300 cm. | 82 5/8 x 118 1/8 in.

[artandthebible]

Mary with the Dead Christ and the Mourning Angels

Artist: Bertholet Flemalle (Belgian, 1614–1675)

Date: 1660 or later

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany

[artemlegere]

The King of Thule

Artist: Pieter Van der Ouderaa (Belgian, 1841–1915)

Date: 1896

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Gaasbeek Castle, Lennik, Belgium

The King of Thule

" Der König in Thule " (" The King in Thule ") is a German poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, written in 1774.

Goethe wrote the poem " Geistesgruß " as a precursor of " Der König in Thule ", while he was traveling to Lahneck Castle on the river Lahn in July 1774. Under Herder 's influence, the setting was changed to the mythical island kingdom Thule , which was thought to be the northernmost place Greek seafarers ventured into antiquity.

In Thule lived a monarch,

Still faithful to the grave, To whom his dying mistress

A golden goblet gave.

Beyond all price he deem'd it,

He quaff'd it at each feast; And, when he drain'd that goblet,

His tears to flow ne'er ceas'd.

And when he felt death near him,

His cities o'er he told, And to his heir left all things,

But not that cup of gold.

A regal banquet held he

In his ancestral ball, In yonder sea-wash'd castle,

'Mongst his great nobles all.

There stood the aged reveller,

And drank his last life's-glow,— Then hurl'd the holy goblet

Into the flood below.

He saw it falling, filling,

And sinking 'neath the main, His eyes then closed for ever,

He never drank again.

[the-cricket-chirps]

René Magritte (Belgian)

Flirtatiousness (La coquetterie), René Magritte at the Jardin des Plantes, photo-booth photo

1929

[koenji]

Théo van Rysselberghe (Belgian, 1862 - 1926), L'heure embrasée (the glowing hour), 1897. Oil on canvas.

[thepaintedroom]

Léon de Smet (Belgian, 1881 - 1966) • Claire dans un intérieur • c. 1940

[nothing-like-the-sun-jgr]

Study for Le Bateau qui passe

oil on canvas laid on board, 36 x 29cm

Emile Claus (Belgian,1849-1924)

[resplendentoutfit]

Playing Dress Match-up: a painted dress and the actual dress or a close match.

Firmin Baes (Belgian, 1874-1943) • Lady with a Pekinese • 1915

1930s silk dressing gown

[collectionstilllife]

Louis Thévenet (Belgian, 1874-1930) • Interior with fruit, tableware and ocarina • 1923 • Private collection

Ocarina: (Italian: “little goose”) globular flute, a late 19th-century musical development of traditional Italian carnival whistles of earthenware, often bird-shaped and sounding only one or two notes. – Oxford Languages online dictionary

[galleryofart]

The Porcelain Collector

Artist: Alfred Stevens (Belgian, 1823-1906)

Date: 1868

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC, United States

[solcattus]

Acrasia dans les bois, 1892

By Fernand Khnopff

[theaskew]

Floris Jespers (Belgian 1889-1965), Still Live with Flowers, 1930. Oil on paper, monotype.

[artandthebible]

Esther

Artist: Jean-François Portaels (Belgian, 1818-1895)

Date: c. 1869

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Description

Here Portaels paints one of the heroines of the Hebrew Bible, Esther. She was the beautiful Jewish wife of the Persian king Ahasuerus (Xerxes I). On learning of her husband's plans to annihilate the Jews throughout his empire - a massacre plotted by the king’s chief minister, Haman - Esther and her cousin Mordecai persuade Ahasuerus to retract the order. On the day planned for the annihilation, instead the Jews destroyed their enemies. The date of the massacre was to have been decided by casting lots ('purim'), which is said to have given the name to the annual celebration of Purim. The story is set out in the Book of Esther, in the third section of the Judaic canon known as the Ketuvim or “Writings” in the Hebrew Bible, and in the Christian Old Testament.