This Portrait of Laure Flé is a very fine example of Neo-Impressionist portrait painting. Dated 1898, it is a work by Belgian artist Théo Van Rysselberghe, who had a special relationship with the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. He had many friends in Luxembourg, among whom were the steel industrialist Émile Mayrisch (1862-1928) and his wife Aline de Saint-Hubert, the country’s first collectors of modern art. In Luxembourg, works by Van Rysselberghe can be found in several private collections as well as at the MNHA (some are part of the Émile Mayrisch collection, which belongs to the Luxembourg Red Cross).

In 1884, Van Rysselberghe was one of the founding members of Les XX before he adopted Divisionism, the theory of separating colours into individual dots that interact optically. He applied it both to his landscapes and to his portraits. He soon made a reputation for himself in the field of portraiture by creating a series of portraits of members of the bourgeoisie of the day.

The sitter is Laure Flé, an opera singer and the wife of composer Georges Flé. During the summer holidays, the couple often welcomed artists, including Van Rysselberg on several occasions, at their villa in Ambleteuse on the Opal Coast in Pas-de-Calais. Van Rysselberghe painted them several times and also created a lithograph representing Laure Flé.

This Portrait of Laure Flé is special as it was painted in tones of white. Their purity is enhanced through the application of small green, blue and orange spots. Together with Signac, Cross, Lemmen or Luce among others, Van Rysselberghe was one of the rare artists who used Pointillism in portraiture. In the works of many Pointillists this technique creates dull and mechanical effects, but this is not the case in Van Rysselberghe’s paintings. Besides the optical effect created by keeping colours separate, he succeeds in giving his dots a kind of effervescence, making them swirl.

The composition and the volumes of this portrait of Laure Flé are remarkably clear. The viewer is struck by the rather official posture of the sitter and, above all, by her expressive eyes that visibly captivated the painter.