Fernand Khnopff

Possibly Marguerite Freson-Khnopff (b. 1864), Liège (the artist's sister);

Possibly thence by descent to her daughter, Gilberte Thibaut de Maisières, Seneffe;

Galerie L'Ecuyer, Brussels, by 1971;

Carl Laszlo (1923–2013), Basel, by 1987;

With Waddington Galleries, London;

Where purchased by the present owner in the 1990s.

Brussels, Galerie L'Ecuyer, Fernand Khnopff, 3 –28 February 1971, no. 10.

F.C. Legrand (ed.), Fernand Khnopff, exh. cat., Brussels 1971, n.p., no. 10;

R.L. Delevoy, C. De Croës and G. Ollinger-Zinque, Fernand Khnopff, Brussels 1979 and 1987, p. 366, no. 474, reproduced (erroneously catalogued as unsigned).

Executed circa 1910, the present work is one of a series of works depicting enigmatic female faces that Khnopff made between 1909 and 1912. Mysticism and eroticism were two prevalent artistic themes at the turn of the century. Khnopff often portrayed women as sphinx-like creatures, mysterious and enigmatic figures harbouring untold secrets - at once vague and defined, aloof and sensual, fragile and powerful, soft and cruel.

According to Gisèle Ollinger-Zinque 'representations of women play a central role in Belgian Symbolism: the figure of woman is seen as an embodiment of the duality and ambiguity of earthly existence. For Khnopff, Woman is by turns the angel, muse and friend who flies to Man’s salvation. Yet she is also the depraved temptress, the femme fatale, the living symbol of Péladan’s Le vice suprême. Angel or demon, she is always alone, isolated from the world and unattainable. She speaks to no one, and Love, the very symbol of communion, is denied her.' (Six Symbolist works, Patrick Derom Gallery, Brussels, 2005, p. 23). 

The stasis of Khnopff's female protagonists is a reflection of their introspection and trance-like state. He believed that an abandonment of consciousness was at the source of dreams and was fascinated with sleep and hypnotic states. Hypnotizing by its own distant dreaminess, the face of Étude de femme is idealized and impenetrable, her closed eyes creating a barrier to deciphering her secret.

Fernand Khnopff was one of the front-runners of avant-garde art in Belgium and played a pivotal role during the 1880s. In 1877 he went to Paris and studied the work of Moreau and Delacroix. Other great influences on his work were the Pre-Raphaelites in England, particularly Burne-Jones and Rossetti, and the work of Symbolist writers such as Georges Rodenbach. He was one of the founding members of Les XX in 1883, yet remained solitary in his work.