Maria Sèthe at the Harmonium

1891

Oil on canvas, 120 × 86 cm. Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp

A young woman sits sideways at a harmonium, her face turned toward light from the left. The dot method gives a quiet domestic moment the presence of a formal portrait.

The painter helped found Les XX, the Brussels exhibiting society that showed Seurat in 1887. That show brought the method to Belgium, where he and other avant-garde artists took it up.
He saw La Grande Jatte in Paris in 1886, with the poet Émile Verhaeren.
Look at the purple dress against purple curtains, set close together in tone.
He switched to divisionism in 1888 while keeping up his work as a portrait painter.
The portrait later hung in the houses her husband designed and built.

The sitter (1867–1942) was a pianist whom he painted more than once. In 1894 she married the Belgian designer and architect Henry van de Velde.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · CC0