Many Belgian painters were attracted to Neo-Impressionism after seeing works by Seurat and his colleagues at an 1887 exhibition in Brussels. Though Van de Velde is better known for his architecture and design, he also painted deft Neo-Impressionist landscapes and figures.

This likeness of his sister's father-in-law already shows him shifting from a strict application of color theory to the decorative concerns of line and pattern. Tiring of Seurat's technique, Van de Velde soon turned his tastes to the curvilinear forms of Art Nouveau and his ideals to mass-producing beautiful utilitarian objects for everyday life.

With Père Biart, the father of the artist’s brother-in-law, Antwerp and Kalmthout; by descent to Edgard Biart, Lausanne. {1} Madame Ionesco, Paris.{2} (Hammer Galleries, New York) by 1967; {2}acquired by W.J. Holliday [1895-1977], Indianapolis, in 1969;{3} by bequest to the Indianapolis Museum of Art in 1979 (79.320).
{1}Edgard Biart is listed as the current owner in A.M. Hammacher, Le Monde de Henry van de Velde (avec un Catalogue de l’Oeuvre peint, dessiné et gravé), Antwerp 1967, cat. no. 22, ill. p. 43.
{2}This former owner is cited in Ellen Wardwell Lee, The Aura of Neo-Impressionism: The W.J. Holliday Collection, Indianapolis, 1983, pp. 74-75(ill.).
{3}See the advertisement for Hammer Galleries in Connoisseur, vol. 166 (November 1967), p. lix (ill.).