"Portrait: Melle M. Sibuet"

"Portrait: Melle M. Sibuet"

£ POA
Reference

346133

A van Holsbeeck was a master of many artistic disciplines and was born in Brussels in 1877. He studied at l'Académie Antwerpen and l'Académie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and his talent, broad education and training enabled him to establish a career as a painter, graphic artist, draftsman, illustrator, miniaturist, fabric designer and wood-carver. This multi-faceted approach to his art reflects the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement, elements of which are discernible in this painting with the background and the surrounding painted stone niche with the carved inscription.

The Arts and Crafts movement had originated in England and the term was utilised first in 1887 at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society. However this was a distillation of ideas and influences which had evolved over a period of about twenty years emanating from the ideas and beliefs of the designer William Morris, the architect Augustus Pugin and the writer John Ruskin. The movement spread through the British Empire and Europe with Belgium being the first on the continent to espouse this new taste and architects and artists fell under its sway in about 1890, most apparent in the formation of the group La Libre Esthétique. The movement's style continued to be a significant influence until Modernism swept through Europe in the 1930s.

The subject matter for van Holsbeeck's paintings mainly comprised portraits, landscapes and still-life done in oils and included subjects such as: "Nature morte au bouquet," "L'Automne; couleurs fauves," "Portrait d'une femme sur une terrasse," "Rayons de soleil sur le bouquet de fleurs," "Portrait d'une fille assise," "La ferme en été."

He was a member of la Société des Miniaturistes Belges and spent most of his working life in central Brussels although he died in Etterbeek which was one of the municipalities bordering that city, in 1948. His work is held in the collection of Le Cabinet des Éstampes à Bruxelles.


Bibliography: Dictionnaire des Artistes Plasticiens de Belgique des XIXe et XXe
Siecles - Paul Piron
Dictionnaire des Peintres - E Benezit
Arto Dictionnaire Biographique Arts Plastiques en Belgique
RKD database


Dimensions:

Height 40.3 cm / 16"
Width 31.7 cm / 12 "
Framed height 43.7 cm / 17 "
Framed width 35.6 cm / 14 "
Year

1877 - 1948

Medium

Oil on panel

Country

Belgium

Signed

signed, inscribed Mariette Sibuet, inscribed on label on reverse

RELATED ITEMS