Lot 2305 Dα

Ronald Feltkamp had not yet included the present painting in the first edition of his catalogue raisonné of Rysselberghe. The portrait of a Spanish woman, dated 1883, was unknown until then, as it was privately owned in Belgium for several generations. The portrait belongs to the earliest period of the artist's work, in which he was still strongly oriented towards Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas. Before turning to Neo-Impressionism, the young Rysselberghe experimented with different styles and subjects. He created several portraits of young Spanish women beginning in 1880. His "Young Gypsy en face or Spanish Woman" in the Royal Museums in Brussels, painted in 1881, is comparable to the present work. Our picture was painted in Toledo in 1883 during the artist's trip to Spain, which subsequently took him to Morocco. On this trip, the artist created a series of paintings with an exotic flair, which he presented to the public in 1883. That year, Rysselberghe also became one of the founding members of the Société des Vingt (Group of XX), a group of avant-garde artists that promoted artistic exchange between France and Belgium.