Piguet
Bateau dans la nuit
Oil on canvas
Original catalogue wording
Bateau dans la nuit
huile sur toile
Catalogue period : 2021-05-26 — 2021-06-09
Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed
Estimate : CHF 400–600
View the lot at the auction house ↗SwissArtGallery · Documented identity
Isidore Verheyden
Born : 1846Died : 1905Documented citizenships : Belgium
A Belgian painter of landscapes, portraits and still lifes, Isidore Verheyden began his artistic training in Brussels within an academic tradition before devoting himself to plein-air painting in Tervuren. Born in Antwerp in 1846, he died in Ixelles in 1905. From 1857, he studied linear drawing, decorative drawing and then drawing from antique models at the Academy of Brussels; Joseph Quinaux was his first teacher there, before he joined Jean-François Portaels’s studio in 1866. He first exhibited at the Brussels Salon in 1863, with Vue prise dans le Condroz.
In Tervuren, where he met Hippolyte Boulenger, Verheyden turned to plein-air painting and became associated with the École de Tervueren. From April 1874 to February 1884, he lived in Hoeilaart, on the Dumberg, in a house whose plans he had drawn himself. The forest landscapes and rural scenes he painted at that time took their subjects from the surrounding environment. The source describes a palette that gradually became brighter and more colourful, as well as a brushwork evolving towards Impressionism. In small studies, he occasionally experimented with a style close to Tachism, without committing himself permanently to Neo-Impressionism or Pointillism.
In 1876, Anna Boch met Verheyden and studied plein-air painting with him, particularly brushwork, structure and colour; he later painted her portrait, which was presented at the Groupe des Vingt exhibition in 1884. Unanimously admitted to the Groupe des Vingt in November 1884, he took part in its exhibitions, then resigned in May 1887 for reasons described as strictly personal. He won a gold medal at the Ghent Salon in 1880 and was made a Knight of the Order of Leopold on 4 May 1881. Appointed professor of painting from nature at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels in 1900, he became its director in 1904 for a three-year term, which was cut short by his death the following year.
Works by Verheyden are recorded in several Belgian museum collections, including the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels, the Ixelles Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent. According to the source, the Charlier Museum holds Pêcheur aux anguilles dans les marais de Genk, an oil on canvas dated 1905, as well as a Portrait of the painter Franz Courtens dated 1890. The gallery page also lists Pêcheur, an unsigned oil on canvas dated 1890, and Moulin à vent, an unsigned oil on canvas mounted on canvas, dated the same year.
This profile brings together identity references for Isidore Verheyden and paintings, drawings and works on paper documented in auction catalogues.
2 references are documented at Dobiaschofsky, Piguet. Each record links to its source; the amounts are not a general valuation of the artist’s work.
Works recorded at auction
Dobiaschofsky
Autumn forest with a woman gathering brushwood.
Oil on canvas
Original catalogue wording
Herbstwald mit Reisigsammlerin.
Öl auf Leinwand
Date to be documented
Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed
View the lot at the auction house ↗Sources and references
SwissArtGallery documentary note based on the cited sources. Titles, media and qualifications are provided in the profile language; the original catalogue wording remains available in each record.
Documentation updated : 2026-10-19