Little Denise (Denise Maréchal, later Madame Georges Béart, 1883–1956)

The Artist: Van Rysselberghe was a leader of the vibrant artistic avant-garde that arose in Belgium in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. He received a traditional art education at state institutions, but, soon after completing his training in the early 1880s, he began to chart a more independent path. In 1883, he was a founding member of Les XX, an artists’ circle based in Brussels that exhibited trailblazing work from across Europe. Van Rysselberghe’s immersion in Belgium’s progressive art world dramatically shaped his development. He had been positioning himself as a painter of scenes of everyday life, inspired by his travels to Spain and Morocco, but he soon began to make paintings inspired by artists who exhibited at Les XX, particularly James McNeill Whistler and the French Impressionists.

In the spring of 1886, Van Rysselberghe saw Georges Seurat’s groundbreaking pointillist masterpiece A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884 (see fig. 1 above) at the eighth Impressionist exhibition in Paris. This painting and others by Seurat and Camille Pissarro also made a splash at Les XX in early 1887. Over the course of the next year, Van Rysselberghe and several other Belgian artists began to experiment with pointillism (also called divisionism), a demanding method that involved creating an image out of small, regular dots of color placed side-by-side on the canvas. Van Rysselberghe quickly became one of pointillism’s most talented and dedicated exponents. He forged a close friendship with the leading French pointillist painter Paul Signac, working with him to develop and promote their new style.[1] Van Rysselberghe’s pointillist period, between roughly 1889 and 1903, is considered the high point of his career. He was a supremely gifted landscapist, but the genre that he truly made his own was pointillist portraiture.

The Sitter: The portrait depicts Van Rysselberghe’s six-year-old niece, Denise Maréchal, the daughter of Dr. Edouard Amédée Maréchal and Irma Monnom. Irma’s sister, Maria Monnom, married Van Rysselberghe in September 1889, the year the portrait was made. The Monnom family was a distinguished one: their publishing house, headed by the matriarch Sylvie Marie-Thérèse Monnom-Descamps, produced the cutting-edge artistic and literary journals L’Art moderne and La Jeune Belgique, as well as posters and exhibition catalogues for Les XX and its successor, La Libre Esthétique. Van Rysselberghe painted a number of portraits of the extended Monnom family, including a smaller, bust-length portrait of Denise Maréchal (fig. 2), made about 1894 and owned by Madame Monnom.

The Painting: Painted about a year after Van Rysselberghe took up pointillism in earnest, Little Denise shows him in full command of the challenging technique, and already developing an individual variation on the principles of Seurat and Signac. Block (1993) considers the painting to be Van Rysselberghe’s first mature pointillist portrait. His technical skill is evident in the finely tuned variations of brushwork and color that comprise the image. In the background, bold dots in vivid hues create an abstract, patterned effect. In the figure’s face, delicate dabs of paint capture the nuances of the girl’s expression. Her gaze and pose suggest a combination of sweetness and innocence on the one hand, and great seriousness and assertiveness, on the other. The portrayal is undiluted by the traditional trappings of child portraits—toys, pets, and playful attitudes— and the sitter’s personality is conveyed with sympathy and power. Van Rysselberghe enhanced the impression of the girl’s youth by positioning her next to a marble mantelpiece and underneath a hanging scroll: she is a small child holding her own in an adult world. Her portrait exemplifies the naturalism and expressiveness that the artist brought to the analytical rigor of pointillism.

Pictorial Sources: The open-minded, international milieu of the Belgian avant-garde exposed Van Rysselberghe to the work of some of the most prominent and innovative artists of his day. Among the most likely sources of inspiration for Little Denise is the art of his idol, Whistler, and in particular Harmony in Grey and Green: Miss Cicely Alexander (fig. 3), exhibited at Les XX in 1884. Little Denise also recalls the portrait of the young Jeanne Kéfer by Belgian artist Fernand Khnopff (fig. 4), shown at Les XX in 1886 (and perhaps also influenced by Whistler). Van Rysselberghe, an accomplished portraitist of children, would have been well aware of such progressive examples of the genre. An interesting point of contrast with Little Denise is the little girl wearing a belted white dress who appears in the center of Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884 (fig. 1). This streamlined figure, so different from Van Rysselberghe’s individualized, emotionally penetrating portrayal, indicates how the Belgian artist adapted pointillism to meet the demands of portraiture.

One of the most striking aspects of Little Denise is the composition. Angled, cropped, and radically simplified, it is more dynamic and inventive than the settings of most of Van Rysselberghe’s portraits. The rigorous geometric structure of horizontal and vertical planes, articulated with patterned brushwork, is akin to the purified, linear harmonies that Seurat and Signac were exploring at the time. However, instead of adopting the stylized, flattened poses seen in Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884 and Models (Poseuses) (fig. 5) (exhibited at Les XX in 1889), Van Rysselberghe depicts Denise in a more spontaneous pose. The little girl leans casually against the wall, the top of her head just breaking the line of the dado, and turns slightly toward the viewer—a subtle yet unmistakable note of unaffected naturalness within the strictly organized scene.

In creating this composition, Van Rysselberghe may have been channeling Edgar Degas, whose work he knew and was keen to exhibit at Les XX.[2] Another possible source for the composition is Japanese art. Like many European artists, Van Rysselberghe was intrigued by Japanese paintings and prints as compelling alternatives to academic conventions of representation. He was collecting Japanese prints by 1887, and several of his portraits from the period depict Japanese works of art and/or appear to draw stylistic inspiration from Japanese precedents. The hanging scroll in Little Denise, which is signed with Van Rysselberghe’s monogram, is one example of this pictorial citation. The image on the scroll is indistinct and has not been identified, but the format echoes that of a common Japanese style of mounting paintings and calligraphy, called kakemono or kakejiku.[3]

The reference to Japanese art in Little Denise emphasizes the modernity of the portrait. In 1889, the year that it was painted, Belgium’s first major exhibitions of Japanese art were held in Brussels. In February, the influential Paris-based dealer Siegfried Bing organized a display of paintings, prints, and objects at the Cercle artistique et littéraire. In May, the Belgian musicographer and collector Edmond Michotte organized another show at the Palais des Beaux-Arts. The government purchased important Japanese works for what are now the Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, giving an official seal of approval to the interest in Japanese art and culture.

Early Exhibitions and Critical Response: Van Rysselberghe clearly considered Little Denise to be a major achievement. He exhibited it in 1890 in two high-profile exhibition venues: at Les XX in Belgium and at his debut at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris, along with other portraits and landscapes. Numerous critics praised the portrait, but it has not been the subject of extended analysis until now. However, Little Denise is consistently cited in the literature as one of Van Rysselberghe’s most successful works and as a premier example of the psychological acumen that he brought to pointillism (see References).

Alison Hokanson 2019

[1] Marina Ferretti Bocquillon, “Signac and Van Rysselbergh [sic]: The story of a friendship, 1887–1907,” Apollo 147 (June 1998), pp. 11–18.
[2] Chartrain-Hebbelinck and Mertens 1966, pp. 60–62, 66, 70, letters 2, 3, 8, 11.
[3] On the japoniste aspects of Van Rysselberghe’s art and its context, see Yoko Takagi, Japonisme in fin de siècle art in Belgium, Antwerp, 2002, pp. 38–39, 141–45, and Elisabeth Brasseur-Cescutti, "Siegfried Bing, organisateur de l’exposition de peinture et d’estampe japonaise au Cercle artistique et littéraire de Bruxelles en 1889," in Siegfried Bing & la Belgique, Brussels, 2010, pp. 194–211.

Inscription: Signed with monogram and dated (at left corner of kakemono): 18TVR89

the sitter, Brussels (until at least 1948 and probably until d. 1956); her husband, Georges Béart, Brussels and Rixensart, Belgium (probably 1956–d.1958); Raymond and Manette (Maria) Counard-Cuypers, Rixensart (by 1962–her d. 1991); Raymond Counard-Cuypers, Rixensart (1991–d.1998); his heirs (1998–99; sale, Sotheby's, London, June 28, 1999, no. 16, for £463,500, to Graham); David R. Graham, London (1999–d. 2017); the estate of David R. Graham (2017–19)

Brussels. Ancien musée de peinture. "Les XX (7me exposition)," January 18–February 23, 1890, no. 1 (under Théo van Rysselberghe, as "Denisette").

Pavillon de la Ville de Paris. "Salon des Indépendants (6e exposition)," March 20–April 27, 1890, no. 784 (as "Portrait de fillette").

Paris. Galerie E. Druet. "Exposition de peintures de Théo van Rysselberghe," May 13–24, 1913, no. 1 (as "Portrait [1888]," lent by Mme D. G. B.).

Brussels. Galeries G. Giroux. "Oeuvres de Théo van Rysselberghe exposées du 4 au 16 mars 1922 dans les galeries G. Giroux 43 Boulevard du Régent à Bruxelles," March 4–16, 1922, no. 4 (as "La petite Denise," lent by Mme Georges Béart).

Brussels. Galerie Giroux. "Théo van Rysselberghe: Exposition d'ensemble," November 25–December 6, 1927, no. 17 (as "La petite Denise," lent by Mme Georges Béart).

Brussels. Palais des Beaux-Arts. "Exposition centennale de l'art belge, 1830–1930: Un siècle d'art," May 17–November 1, 1930, no. 416 (of paintings, as "La Petite Denise," lent by Mme Georges Béart).

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Ghent. "Rétrospective Théo van Rysselberghe," July 1–September 16, 1962, no. 49 (lent by M. and Mme Counard-Cuypers, Rixensart).

Luxembourg. Musée d'Histoire et d'Art. "Théo van Rysselberghe, 1862–1926," October 27–November 25, 1962, no. 18 (lent by M. and Mme R. Counard-Cuypers, Rixensart).

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Ghent. "Théo van Rysselberghe, néo-impressionniste," March 20–June 6, 1993, no. 30 (lent by a private collection).

THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT.

Georges Lecomte. "Société des artistes indépendants." L'art moderne 10 (March 30, 1890), p. 100.

Eugène Demolder. "Chronique artistique: Le Salon des 'XX'." La Société Nouvelle: Revue internationale 6 (1890), p. 114, extolls the picture as delightful and the figure's pose as graceful.

Mario Varvara. "Les 'Indépendants'." Ecrits pour l'art (1890), p. 292, praises the picture.

Paul Bluysen. "Au jour le jour: L’exposition des ‘artistes indépendants’." La République Française (March 21, 1890), p. 3, notes it as among those paintings displayed in Gallery 4—“le sanctuaire réservé aux lentillistes et à leurs élèves” (the sanctuary reserved for lentillists and their students)—that retained a concern for form and were, therefore, less ridiculed.

Georges Lecomte. "L'Exposition des Néo-Impressionnistes: Pavillon de la ville de Paris." Art et critique 2 (March 29, 1890), p. 204, calls it "un portrait de fillette, sobre de ton et de facture, d'un fort beau dessin" (a portrait of a little girl, sober in tone and facture, of a very beautiful design).

Firmin Javel. "Nouvelles artistiques." Gil Blas 12 (March 30, 1890), p. 2, writes that it and two other portraits by the artist are “la note dominante de l'École belge, car, ici, nous sommes en présence d'un bel art de portraitiste savant, maître de son outil, étonnamment lumineux et frais” (the dominant note of the Belgian School, because, here, we are in the presence of the beautiful art of a learned portraitist, master of his craft, surprisingly bright and fresh).

A. H. "Les XX." La wallonie (April 1890), p. 131.

Jules Christophe. "Causerie: L'impressionnisme à l'exposition des artistes indépendants." Journal des artistes 9 (April 6, 1890), p. 102, notes it among the works in the new technique, characterized as having a “logique de procédé très peu sûre” (very uncertain logic in its method).

"Les indépendants." L'art français 3 (April 12, 1890), p. 214, praises the picture.

Theo van Rysselberghe. Letter to Octave Maus. April 17, 1913 [published in Chartrain-Hebbelinck and Mertens 1966], thanks Maus for overseeing the shipment of the painting [to Paris 1913].

Louis Vauxcelles. "L'Art à Paris: Exposition Théo Van Rysselberghe." L'art moderne 33 (May 25, 1913), p. 165, states that it is dated 1889; calls it a ravishing study that shows Seurat's influence and does not neglect proper modeling of forms.

André M. de Poncheville. "Théo Van Rysselberghe." Gand artistique 5 (1926), p. 9, calls it one of the artist's most characteristic works of the late 1880s.

Gustave Vanzype. "Théo Van Rysselberghe." Annuaire de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique 98 (1932), pp. 122, 126, 130, calls it "Denise"; states that the facture is very close to that of the works of the neo-Impressionists; includes it in a short list of the artist's principal works of 1889.

Paul Fierens. Théo van Rysselberghe. Brussels, 1937, pp. 16, 18–19, pl. 5, calls it the most delightful of the artist's pointillist portraits; relates a tale of its origin in which the child was moving in and out of the room and stopped for a moment to lean against the wall by the fireplace's base when the artist cried out that she should not move, as he caught a vision of his painting-to-be; identifies the object over the sitter's head as a Japanese "kakemono".

Jozef Muls. Een Eeuw Portret in Belgie. Diest, 1944, p. 126.

François Maret. Théo van Rysselberghe. Antwerp, 1948, pp. 12, 16, pl. 7, as in the collection of Mme Georges Béart.

Paul Eeckhout. Rétrospective Théo van Rysselberghe. Exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts, Ghent. Ghent, 1962, p. 37, no. 49, pl. XV, identifies the sitter as the artist's niece Denise Maréchal (Madame Georges Béart) and notes that the picture had been in her collection.

Robert Stumper in Théo van Rysselberghe, 1862–1926. Exh. cat., Musée d'histoire et d'art, Luxembourg. Luxembourg, 1962, p. 6, states that the painting is considered to be one of the artist's masterpieces and that it affirms Van Rysselberghe as the master of the neo-Impressionist portrait; dates it 1889.

Marie-Jeanne Chartrain-Hebbelinck and Ph. Mertens, ed. "Lettres de Théo van Rysselberghe à Octave Maus." Bulletin des musées royaux des beaux-arts de Belgique 15 (1966), p. 109 nn. 1, 2, fig. 44 (overall and detail), publish Van Rysselberghe's letter of 1913 to Octave Maus; note that the portrait is in the Counard-Cuypers collection in Rixensart and that it was exhibited in Paris 1913.

Susan Marie Canning. "A History and Critical Review of the Salons of 'Les Vingt,' 1884–1893." PhD diss., Pennsylvania State University, 1980, p. 272, fig. 143.

Roger Cardon. Georges Lemmen (1865–1916). Antwerp, 1990, p.338 n. 1, notes that the sitter is six years old in the painting.

Jane Block in Theo van Rysselberghe, néo-impressionniste. Exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts, Ghent. Ghent, 1993, p. 12, compares it to the artist's "Portrait of Madame Charles Maus" (1890, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels).

Robert Hoozee and Helke Lauwaert in Theo van Rysselberghe, néo-impressionniste. Exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts, Ghent. Ghent, 1993, pp. 81, 84, 202, no. 30, ill. p. 85 (color).

Sabine Mund and Henry Bounameaux. "La cote de l'artiste: Théo van Rysselberghe (1862–1926)." Art, antiques, auctions (June 2001), p. 47, ill. p. 46 (color), report on its sale at Sotheby's, London, in 1999.

Takagi Yoko. "Japonisme" in Fin de Siècle Art in Belgium. Antwerp, 2002, pp. 10, 143, colorpl. 5.19, states that the picture is in a private collection; notes that the artist signed his monogram "18TVR89" on the "kakemono" and remarks on the coincidence of this 1889 date with the first Japanese art exhibition at the Cercle Artistique et Littéraire de Bruxelles, where thirty-six "kakemono" appeared; locates similar signatures on two of the artist's other portraits painted shortly after.

Ronald Feltkamp. Théo Van Rysselberghe, 1862–1926. Brussels, 2003, pp. 54, 284, ill. (color and black and white), identifies the subject as the niece of Maria Van Rysselberghe-Monnom.

Dominique Lobstein in Théo van Rysselberghe. Exh. cat., Centre for Fine Arts. Brussels, 2006, pp. 116–18, 129 nn. 8, 11, ill. (color), identifies the painting with number 784 in the sixth exhibition of the Salon des Indépendants; reviews the early criticism of the picture; calls it "Denisette".

Jane Block in The Neo-Impressionist Portrait, 1886–1904. Exh. cat., ING Cultural Centre, Brussels. Indianapolis, 2014, pp. 49–50, 140 n. 7, pp. 183, 222, fig. 24 (color), states that in this portrait the artist eliminated academic conventions still found in his "Alice Sèthe" (1888, Musée départemental Maurice Denis, "Le Prieuré," Saint-Germain-en-Laye); dates it 1890; compares it to the artist's "Portrait of Madame Charles Maus" (1890, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels) in their shared organization indebted to James McNeill Whistler.

Alison Hokanson in "Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 2018–20, Part II: Late Eighteenth Century to Contemporary." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 78 (Spring 2021), p. 26, ill. p. 27 (color).

This work may not be lent.