Portrait Of A Lady, Eugene Siberdt

A beautiful portrait of very fine quality by the well known painter Eugene Siberdt
Oil on canvas in a wonderful wooden with plaster ornamented guilded frame, the canvas is still on it’s original frame
Eugène Siberdt, or Eugène François Joseph Siberdt (Antwerp, 21 April 1851 – Antwerp, 6 January 1931) was a Belgian Academic, late-Romantic painter who created portraits, history paintings, genre scenes and Orientalist paintings. He is now mainly known as the professor of drawing at the Antwerp Academy whose conflict with Vincent van Gogh led to van Gogh leaving the Antwerp Academy after only three months of attendance.
Eugène Siberdt was born in Antwerp where he trained at the Antwerp Academy under Edward Du Jardin, Polydore Beaufaux, Van Lerius and Nicaise de Keyser
He was awarded the Prix de Rome (Second Place) in 1873. From 1874, Siberdt commenced exhibiting at all the important Belgian salons with success. He was a successful portrait painter and became the Official Royal Portraitist.
Siberdt was appointed a professor at the Antwerp Academy in 1883. Vincent van Gogh started to attend drawing classes after plaster models at the Antwerp Academy on 18 January 1886. Here van Gogh quickly got into trouble with Charles Verlat, the director of the Academy and teacher of a painting class, because of his unconventional painting style. Van Gogh had also clashed with the instructor of the drawing class Franz Vinck. Van Gogh finally started to attend the drawing classes after antique plaster models given by Siberdt. Soon Siberdt and van Gogh came into conflict when the latter did not comply with Siberdt’s requirement that drawings express the contour and concentrate on the line. When van Gogh was required to draw the Venus de Milo during a drawing class, he produced the limbless, naked torso of a Flemish peasant woman. Siberdt regarded this as defiance against his artistic guidance and made corrections to van Gogh’s drawing with his crayon so vigorously that he tore the paper. Van Gogh then flew into a violent rage and shouted at Siberdt: ‘You clearly do not know what a young woman is like, God damn it! A woman must have hips, buttocks, a pelvis in which she can carry a baby!’ According to some accounts this was the last time van Gogh attended classes at the Academy and he left later for Paris. On 31 March 1886, which was about a month after the confrontation with Siberdt, the teachers of the Academy decided that 17 students, including van Gogh, had to repeat a year. The story that van Gogh was expelled from the Academy by Siberdt is therefore unfounded.
His works are mainly in private hands, but also in museums in Antwerp and Bruges
A wonderful piece of history, a very fine quality portrait that deserves a special place on the wall
Frame has small restaurations to the plaster, canvas in very good condition
frame 105 cm high total
74 cm wide