Fernand Khnopff Belgian, 1858-1921

Georgette Berckmans, Toronto (a friend of the artist)
Acquired by the present owner from the above in the 1960s

Robert Delevoy, Catherine de Croës, Gisèle Ollinger-Zinque, Fernand Khnopff: Catalogue de l'Oeuvre, Brussels, 1987, p. 375, no. 509, catalogued and illustrated

Executed in 1912, the present work is one of a series of pastels depicting enigmatic female faces framed by curtains that Khnopff made between 1909 and 1912. These cropped images were influenced by the stylistic device of truncation in Japanese woodcuts, which were very much in vogue at the time, and also by photography, which Khnopff saw as a new working tool and instrument of interpretation that gave his art a new sense of the ‘complicity of vision, emotion and creation’.

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 curtain thus can be seen as taking on the role of veil, hiding the true identity of the portrayed.

fig. 1 Monogram on the mount of the present work