Guitar player - Portrait of the Spanish painter Darío de Regoyos

This 1882 panel portrait depicting the Spanish painter Darío de Regoyos playing guitar is an early masterpiece of Van Rysselberghe's career and documents a formative artistic friendship. Regoyos, a Basque-Spanish painter who would himself become a significant figure in Spanish Post-Impressionism, was a fellow member of the Brussels avant-garde and a founding member of Les XX when that group was established in 1883. The two men were close, and Van Rysselberghe's intimate depiction of him — not as a formal subject but as a musician caught in the private act of playing — reflects the ease of artistic camaraderie. In 1882 Van Rysselberghe was still working in a relatively naturalistic style, and the painting shows his command of the Flemish tradition of informal domestic portraiture before his conversion to divisionism. The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium preserve the work as a document of the early Les XX circle at the moment of its formation.

Oil on panel with a naturalistic technique that predates Van Rysselberghe's divisionist period. The handling is confident and direct, with broad tonal passages defining the figure and close attention to the guitar's wood grain and the hands' position on the strings. The limited palette and intimate scale give the work an informal, sketch-like quality that serves its subject perfectly.