Portrait of the painter Louis Derickx

Charles Verlat was a Belgian painter known for both his Antwerp history subjects and his animal and portrait painting. This 1886 portrait of painter Louis Derickx belongs to the tradition of artists portraying their professional colleagues — a genre particularly common in Antwerp's active art world. Derickx was an Antwerp painter of the same generation as Verlat, and the portrait reflects the professional solidarity of the Royal Museum's artistic community. Such artist portraits served both personal and documentary functions, preserving records of individuals in a particular artistic milieu.

Verlat renders his fellow painter with the directness appropriate to a professional portrait between colleagues, without the social formality of a society commission. The face is characterized with psychological directness and the handling is confident and economical.