Fernand Khnopff
Belgian, 1858 - 1921
Study of a Woman
Date: 1896
Khnopff was greatly interested in developments in contemporary British art, and in particular was an admirer of Burne-Jones, with whom he exchanged letters, and whose obituary he wrote for the Magazine of Art in 1898. Dedicated to Burne-Jones this drawing is a tangible record of the friendship between the two artists.
Khnopff wrote extensively on British and Belgium art, notably for the Studio. Until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, he was a contributor to almost every issue of the Studio, acting as Brussels correspondent.
Khnopff wrote passionately of Burne-Jones in his obituary of him:
The works remain - the man is no more - the man whom those who loved him were so glad and proud to call on in his home … But he did not leave us till he had produced a vast amount of work, all stamped with the seal of brilliant individuality - not till the world had given him not merely the most universal celebrity, but even, alas! had granted him popularity … The name of Burne-Jones became a watch-word, a standard hailed with the enthusiasm of younger men in the new effort for idealism, the most vigorous artistic movement of later days.
I am proud to have been chosen to write … these few lines of intense and reverent admiration and of deep gratitude for the great artist who was led by his high ideal to produce such noble and beautiful work - work which will always be a supreme joy to those who liberate their sensations and ideas from the hampering weight of material hindrances and bonds, and to uplift them to those higher spheres where a subtle intelligence can find and purify the very essence of those sensations and ideas.
Magazine of Art, 1898
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