Gustave Van de Wœstyne (1881-1947) is one of the founding members of the first Laethem St.-Martin group, whose participants, in reaction against the ease of Impressionism, adopt an art that favors clear contours and profound subjects. Trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent (1895-1899), Van de Wœstyne is deeply influenced by the Flemish primitives he admires in Bruges in 1902. Seven years later, he leaves Laethem St.-Martin for Louvain, and then, in 1912, settles in Etterbeek (Brussels) and later in Tiegem. The following spring, he travels through Florence and Tuscany with his friend, the painter Valerius De Saedeleer. After the outbreak of the First World War, the Van de Wœstyne and De Saedeleer families find refuge in the Netherlands. Van de Wœstyne then moves to Great Britain, residing in various places. First in Wales, where Flemish emigrants form a close-knit community, then in London, exploring its museums, and in Sussex. Returning to Belgium in 1919, he settles shortly afterward in Waregem, West Flanders, in the Rozenhuis (or House of Roses). This small villa, built in 1909, belongs to the textile industrialist Charles De Zutter and his wife Marguerite Taelman. The couple, art enthusiasts and philanthropists, turn Rozenhuis into a residence for artists and intellectuals. Adrienne De Zutter with the violin was painted in 1920. This large canvas is one of Van de Wœstyne's first post-war works, along with La Famille au jardin (circa 1919), recently acquired by the Ghent Museum (MSK, inv. 2022-M).

Van de Wœstyne is one of the most brilliant and sensitive Belgian portraitists of his time. This is echoed in the numerous portraits of his wife, his friends, and also the children of his relatives, such as Adrienne De Zutter, of whom he painted two images a year apart. The first one dates from 1919, depicting the young girl seated with her dog, with an almost Boldini-like touch and a pearly palette (Antwerp, KMSKA, inv. 2949). One year later, with Adrienne De Zutter au violon, he opts for a smooth finish and stylization reminiscent of the portrait of Valerius De Saedeleer painted in 1914 (private collection). Like the latter, he paints a full-length image and gives it the format of a ceremonial portrait: over 2 meters in height. With her violin in hand and neatly dressed, Adrienne is depicted in a fairy-tale landscape consisting of two slender trees, perhaps umbrella pines, rising from stylized valleys, and a rose, worthy of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Petit Prince, in the foreground on the right. The upper part of the sky is simply described using a royal blue band in the style of Hiroshige prints. This naive-style landscape echoes the paintings of Henri Rousseau, for whom, as we learn from his correspondence, Van de Wœstyne harbored a deep admiration at that time. However, the origin of his simplification of forms, muted colors, lack of shadows, and the matte quality of his paint layer, which characterize our canvas, can be found in the Italian frescoes of the Quattrocento, studied by the artist during his first trip to Florence in 1913. It is also during these years that Van de Wœstyne tried his hand at the demanding art of fresco, notably for the De Zutters. Thus, for the Rozenhuis, he created in 1920 a Christian-inspired mural decoration, Héberger les voyageurs (Ghent, MSK, inv. 1969-C), where he portrays himself, inviting a traveler to enter his home.


  Adrienne De Zutter at the age of 15 in front of the painting Héberger les voyageurs. ©DR

The ties between the De Zutter and Van de Wœstyne families date back to before the Great War. Beyond these friendly relationships, the couple played a true patronage role for the artist, as evidenced by the booklet of the Van de Wœstyne retrospective in Brussels (Palais des Beaux-Arts, 1929) in which the De Zutter name is mentioned alongside 18 works. In an unpublished plea that the painter addressed on February 5, 1929, to Marguerite Taelman to encourage her to lend her works after an initial refusal, he indicates: "Without your paintings, I must not show those from other collections because, as you know as well as I do, yours are the best". While it is highly probable that the portrait of Adrienne was commissioned by the De Zutters, it is also conceivable that Gustave was struck by the languid and pale beauty of his model, who married the eldest son of his brother Karel in 1929, and whose canon irresistibly evokes the female creatures painted by the Pre-Raphaelites, which he contemplated in Britain during his English exile.


  Charles De Zutter (1863 - 1928) and Marguerite Taelman (1875 - 1937). ©DR

Adrienne De Zutter au violon is the tangible memory of the fruitful years that Gustave Van de Wœstyne spent at the Rozenhuis in Waregem, years during which the artist continued to evolve towards what he would become: a painter of profound originality who, before, during, and after the First World War, was decisive for the development of international modern art in Belgium.


GUSTAVE VAN DE WŒSTYNE (1881-1947)
Adrienne De Zutter au violon, 1920
Oil on canvas
Signed lower left, Dedicated 'To Adrienne De Zutter', initialed and dated '1920' on the back

208 x 110 cm - 81 7/8 x 43 1/4 in.

PROVENANCE
- Collection of the model, Adrienne De Zutter (1905 - 1989), future Madame Paul Van de Wœstyne (1905 - 1963), himself son of the writer Karel Van de Wœstyne (1878 - 1929) and nephew of the painter
- Private collection, Europe (by descent to the current owners, grandchildren of the model and great-nephews of the painter)

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Robert Hoozee and Cathérine Verleysen, Gustave Van de Wœstyne, cat. expo., Gent (Gand), Museum voor Schone Kunsten, 27 mars - 27 juin 2010, Bruxelles : Fonds Mercator, 2010, décrit et reproduit sous le n°78, p. 156 (daté par erreur ‘1922')

EXHIBITIONS:
- Gustave Van de Wœstyne, 1841 - 1947, Malines, Kultureel Centrum Mechelen, 1967 (titré Adrienne met de viool)
- Gustave Van de Wœstyne, Gand, Museum voor Schone Kunsten, 27 mars - 27 juin 2010, n° 78

RELATED WORK
Gustave Van de Wœstyne (1881 - 1947), Adrienne, 1919, huile sur toile, 108 x 98 cm, Anvers, KMSKA (inv. 2949)

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