A Portrait of an Oriental Girl

Edouard (Edward) Verschaffelt was born in Ledeberg, Belgium in 1874. He was painter of genre-scenes, figures, portraits and Orientalist subjects. He was also illustrator and colourist.

He studied at the Ghent Academy of Fine Arts where he was awarded Laureate. He continued his artistic studies at the Antwerp School of Art. He was a peerless colourist and an impeccable sketcher.

Around 1930, Verschaffelt resided for some time in Morocco and Algeria to escape the German occupation in Belgium and created many exotic Orientalist paintings. He ultimately moved to Bou Saada with his wife and after her death, married an Algerian woman of the tribe of Ouled Sidi Brahim and had two children. He stayed in Bou Saada until his death.

When his beautiful works do appear on the art market, they are highly sought after and considered to be of the highest quality.

Today, his paintings can be found in private and public collections including the Brussels Museum of Fine Arts and the Farhat Art Museum in Lebanon.

His paintings can also be found in the Brussels Ministry of Education: “Woman in yellow”.

Literature:

W.G. FLIPPO, ‘Lexicon of the Belgian Romantic painters’, Antwerp 1981.