LOUIS VAN ENGELEN | The Café Belvedere, Antwerp

Private collection, Liège

Sale: De Lauwe, Antwerp, 1932

Private collection (purchased at the above sale)

De Stad Antwerpen, 26 September 1930

De Gazet van Antwerpen, 23 July 1952

'Antwerps schilderij hing lange tijd in Griekenland', in De Gazet van Antwerpen, 19 August 1983

A lively view of high society at leisure in the 1880s, the present work is set in the Antwerp district of Sint-Anneke in Linkeroever, on the left bank of the river Scheldt. In its day the Café Belvedere (aptly named for the view it offers across the river) was a meeting point for the city's beau monde, opened as part of the general development of the area at the time of the Antwerp Wereldtentoonstelling or World Fair Exhibition of 1885 (fig. 1). While the café no longer exists, visible in the background are several landmarks which remain familiar: the Cathedral of our Lady, and to the left Saint Paul's Church.

The scene includes a number of the leading figures of cultural life in contemporary Antwerp. On the near table to the left is a self-portrait of the artist wearing a straw boater, next to a certain Mlle Fauconnier. On the table just beyond are the painter Edouard Chappel (smoking and pointing), Charles Mertens and the artist's brother Piet (both fellow painters); to the right are the artist Jan van Beers (in profile), and to the right of him the composer Peter Benoit.