Charles Doudelet (1861-1938): Paysage en Hollande (Veere), huile sur panneau, daté 1898

Work: 45,5 x 33 cm 

Frame: 64,5 x 52 cm 

Doudelet created this painting when he and Franz Melchers had started a stained-glass studio in Veere, Zeeland Flanders. The region fascinated him at the time. He felt that the country and its inhabitants, all in traditional costume, possessed a naive quality; it was a land of charming houses populated by people who walked like dolls.

Charles Doudelet (1861–1938) occupies a singular position within the European Symbolist movement. A Belgian artist of exceptional range and erudition, Doudelet’s work spans painting, drawing, book illustration, scenography, cinema, sculpture, scholarship and art criticism. Though his name has long remained on the periphery of canonical art history, recent scholarship has begun to restore his reputation as one of the most intellectually ambitious and stylistically distinctive figures of the so-called fin de siècle (Thomas Deprez Fine Arts).

Ref.:
- The preparatory sketch of this work can be seen in the last picture. We would like to thank Mr. Jan Boddaert for sharing this information.
- A gouache of the work, dated 1897, is also known (in the collection Anna de Weert, Ghent); see the oeuvre catalogue of Charles Doudelet by Jan Boddaert, number 3629. 
- The work offered here will also be included in the oeuvre catalogue (third edition, number 3629).

Condition: (UV-checked)
- The work in good and hangable condition.
- Not inspected outside the frame.
- Negligible wear to the borders due to the framing.
- Two very small hardly visible spots of flaking paint (center top and center right).
- Would benefit of a new framing (frame a little loose) and a new protection glass, as well as a superficial cleaning.