Léon Herbo (Tournai, 1850 - Ixelles, 1907)

"Longchamp fleuri"

oil on canvas applied to panel, 97x80 cm

signed at the bottom left

The graceful painting by Léon Herbo is a perfect representation of the “Longchamp fleuri”, the flower festival that was organized in Brussels at the end of the 19th century. A crowd of horse-harnessed flower cars crossed Avenue Longchamp Bois de la Cambre and Avenue Luise for the occasion, accompanied by military fanfare. All the good society of the city flocked to this event, also frequented by Queen Marie-Henriette, wife of Leopoldo II. The ladies in coupes and buggies showed off their elegance, marching in front of the grandstand in their most sophisticated dresses and headdresses full of flowers and bows.

Léon Herbo, a highly regarded artist in late nineteenth-century Brussels, loved to portray the female figure with a refined style capable of revealing the beauty of the women of his time and representing them in their sensual and seductive nature. Some of his paintings can be admired in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, in the Museum of Painting and Sculpture in Kortrijk and in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Tournai. Herbo paints this portrait in a period in which art wanted to pay homage to female beauty in its own right; the lady of the late nineteenth century was presented as an intriguing creature, whose exterior and sensually decorative side was enhanced.

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