Les soeurs du peintre Schlobach

Painted in 1884 and held in the Liège Fine Arts Museum, this double portrait of the sisters of the painter Willy Schlobach belongs to Van Rysselberghe's pre-divisionist years, executed before his full conversion to Neo-Impressionism. Schlobach was a Belgian artist and an acquaintance of Van Rysselberghe within the Brussels avant-garde, and painting his sisters was an act of social and artistic solidarity within that milieu. Double portraits of women presented specific compositional challenges: how to distinguish two figures of similar age and social standing while maintaining compositional unity. The painting's format — the Belgian title 'Les soeurs du peintre Schlobach' identifies it as both a family portrait and an artistic document — places it squarely in the tradition of informal bourgeois portraiture that was central to the Belgian art market of the 1880s. Van Rysselberghe's growing mastery of direct observation is visible in the differentiation of the two sitters despite the broad, pre-divisionist handling.

Oil on canvas with a naturalistic technique that predates Van Rysselberghe's divisionist conversion by approximately two years. The two figures are differentiated through pose, costume, and tonal contrast rather than the later colour contrasts. The handling is assured and direct, with Flemish naturalist antecedents visible in the attention to fabric texture and the quality of indoor light.