Léon de Smet

In this lovely summer scene, Mére et enfant sur un banc, Leon de Smet depicts his first wife Maria and one of their two sons Marcel, possibly in the garden of their family house at Sint-Martens-Latem. Marcel, born in January 1904, would have been 2 1/2 years old when this work was painted.

Belgian responses to Impressionism were concentrated in the artists' colony based in this village, where painters had settled from the 1880s onwards. Léon de Smet arrived there from his native Ghent in 1906, along with his brother, Gustave, and rapidly became a leading figure among Second Generation Latem artists. He became a member of the Vie et Lumière group and painted consistently in a Luministe manner throughout his seven years there.

Mére et enfant sur un banc truly encapsulates the diverse influences brought together by the Luministes and in particular, the influence of the French Impressionists. The highly-keyed palette and delicate handling clearly reference the masters of French Impressionism. One can see the stong emphasis on light and the reflections in the scene, which create a very intimate mood and chaming effect.