Émile Baes was a prolific artist who painted in oil, produced delicate pastel drawings, executed fine etchings and designed illustrations for a range of periodicals and books. His subject matter was wide-ranging and encompassed nudes, interiors featuring elegant women, genre scenes, history paintings, intimate and formal portraits, Orientalist vignettes, landscapes and carefully composed still lifes.
Baes began his training and early career firmly within the academic tradition but later evolved toward a Post‑Impressionist idiom, refining a looser, more expressive handling of color and light that proved especially well suited to his preferred subject: the female nude. He showed these works in major artistic centres such as Paris and Brussels, notably exhibiting a series of nudes representing historical and mythological women under the title Princesses d’Amour. Many critics and collectors described these pieces as gently erotic or verging on the libertine, and the fact that he sold hundreds of such nudes attests to the strong contemporary demand for this kind of imagery.
In addition to oil painting he worked frequently in pastel and watercolor and issued several published sets of his prints, further extending his reach among collectors and the reading public.
Artist: Emile Baes | Oil on canvas, carved in gilt frame
Set in its original frame. The painting is in excellent condition.
Size: 80” h x 60” w
C. 1910, Belgium
Émile Baes was a prolific artist who painted in oil, produced delicate pastel drawings, executed fine etchings and designed illustrations for a range of periodicals and books. His subject matter was wide-ranging and encompassed nudes, interiors featuring elegant women, genre scenes, history paintings, intimate and formal portraits, Orientalist vignettes, landscapes and carefully composed still lifes.
Baes began his training and early career firmly within the academic tradition but later evolved toward a Post‑Impressionist idiom, refining a looser, more expressive handling of color and light that proved especially well suited to his preferred subject: the female nude. He showed these works in major artistic centres such as Paris and Brussels, notably exhibiting a series of nudes representing historical and mythological women under the title Princesses d’Amour. Many critics and collectors described these pieces as gently erotic or verging on the libertine, and the fact that he sold hundreds of such nudes attests to the strong contemporary demand for this kind of imagery.
In addition to oil painting he worked frequently in pastel and watercolor and issued several published sets of his prints, further extending his reach among collectors and the reading public.
Artist: Emile Baes | Oil on canvas, carved in gilt frame
Set in its original frame. The painting is in excellent condition.
Size: 80” h x 60” w
C. 1910, Belgium
